THE 

STORY OF 
AROUND I 

MASEFIELD 





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THE STORY OF A ROUND-HOUSE 
AND OTHER POEMS 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



THE STORY OF 

A ROUND-HOUSE AND 

OTHER POEMS 



BY 
JOHN MASEFIELD 

AUTHOR OF "THE EVERLASTING MERCY " 
"the widow in THE BYE STREET," ETC. 



NEW AND REVISED EDITION 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1913 

All rights reserved 






Copyright, 1912 and 1913, 

Bt the macmillan company. 

Set up and electrotyped Published November, 1912. 
New and revised edition, June, 1913. 



Notfaooti i^teaa 

J. S. Cashing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



//.^-t) 



!CI,A347824 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Dauber 1 

Biography 165 

Ships 188 

Truth 197 

They closed her Eyes 199 

The Harp .205 

I saw the Ramparts 206 

That Blessed Sunlight 208 

Song 210 

The Ballad of Sir Bors 212 

Spanish Waters 215 

Cargoes 220 

Captain Stratton's Fancy ..... 222 

An Old Song re-sung ...... 225 

St. Mary's Bells 227 

London Town ....... 229 

The Emigrant 232 

Port of Holy Peter 231 

Beauty 237 

The Seekers 238 

Prayer 211 

Dawn 243 

Laugh and be Merry 244 

June Twilight 246 

Roadways . . 248 

Midsummer Night 250 

The Harper's Song ....... 252 

The Gentle Lady 254 

The Dead Knight 255 

V 



VI CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Sorrow of Mydath 257 

Twilight 259 

Invocation 260 

Posted as Missing 261 

A Creed 263 

When Bony Death 266 

The West Wind 268 

Her Heart 271 

Being her Friend 273 

Fragments 274 

Born for Nought Else 278 

Tewkesbury Road 280 

The Death Rooms 282 

Ignorance 284 

Sea Fever 286 

The Watch in the Wood 288 

C. L. M 291 

Waste 293 

Third Mate 295 

The Wild Duck 298 

Christmas, 1903 300 

The Word 302 



THE STORY OF A ROUND-HOUSE 
AND OTHER POEMS 



DAUBER 

I 

Four bells were struck, the watch was called 

on deck, 
All work aboard was over for the hour. 
And some men sang and others played 

at check, 
Or mended clothes or watched the sunset 

glower. 
The bursting west was like an opening 

flower. 
And one man watched it till the hght was 

dim, 
But no one went across to talk to him. 

He was the painter in that swift ship's 

crew, 

Lampman and painter — tall, a slight-built 

man, 

B 1 



2 DAUBER 

Young for his years, and not yet twenty- 
two ; 

Sickly, and not yet brown with the sea's tan. 

Bullied and damned at since the voyage 
began, 

"Being neither man nor seaman by his 
tally," 

He bunked with the idlers just abaft the 
galley. 

His work began at five ; he worked all day. 
Keeping no watch and having all night in. 
His work was what the mate might care to 

say; 
He mixed red lead in many a bouilli tin ; 
His dungarees were smeared with paraffin. 
"Go drown himself" his round-house mates 

advised him, 
And all hands called him "Dauber" and 

despised him. 



DAUBER 3 

Si, the apprentice, stood beside the spar. 
Stripped to the waist, a basin at his side, 
Slushing his hands to get away the tar. 
And then he washed himself and rinsed and 

dried ; 
Towelling his face, hair-towzelled, eager 

eyed. 
He crossed the spar to Dauber, and there 

stood 
Watching the gold of heaven turn to blood. 

They stood there by the rail while the swift 

ship 
Tore on out of the tropics, straining her 

sheets. 
Whitening her trackway to a milky strip. 
Dim with green bubbles and twisted water 

meets. 
Her clacking tackle tugged at pins and 

cleats, 



4 BA UBER 

Her great sails bellied stiff, her great masts 

leaned : 
They watched how the seas struck and burst 

and greened. 

Si talked with Dauber, standing by the 

side. 
''Why did you come to sea, painter?" he 

said. 
"I want to be a painter," he replied, 
"And know the sea and ships from A to Z, 
And paint great ships at sea before I'm dead ; 
Ships under skysails running down the 

Trade — 
Ships and the sea; there's nothing finer 

made. 

"But there's so much to learn, with sails 

and ropes, 
And how the sails look, full or being furled, 



DAUBER 5 

And how the lights change in the troughs 

and slopes, 
And the sea's colours up and down the 

world, 
And how a storm looks when the sprays 

are hurled 
High as the yard (they say) I want to see ; 
There's none ashore can teach such things 

to me. 

''And then the men and rigging, and the way 
Ships move, running or beating, and the 

poise 
At the roll's end, the checking in the sway — 
I want to paint them perfect, short of the 

noise ; 
And then the life, the half-decks full of boys. 
The fo'c'sles with the men there, dripping 

wet : 
I know the subjects that I want to get. 



6 DAUBER 

''It's not been done, the sea, not yet been 

done, 
From the inside, by one who really knows ; 
I'd give up all if I could be the one. 
But art comes dear the way the money 

goes. 
So I have come to sea, and I suppose 
Three years will teach me all I want to learn 
And make enough to keep me till I earn." 

Even as he spoke his busy pencil moved, 
Drawing the leap of water off the side 
Where the great clipper trampled iron- 

hooved, 
Making the blue hills of the sea divide. 
Shearing a glittering scatter in her stride. 
And leaping on full tilt with all sails draw- 
ing, 
Proud as a war-horse, snuffing battle, paw- 
ing. 



f 



DAUBEE 7 

"I cannot get it yet — not yet," he said; 
''That leap and hght, and sudden change 

to green, 
And all the glittering from the sunset's red, 
And the milky colours where the bursts 

have been, 
And then the cUpper striding like a queen 
Over it all, all beauty to the crown. 
I see it all, I cannot put it down. 

''It's hard not to be able. There, look 

there ! 
I cannot get the movement nor the light; 
Sometimes it almost makes a man despair 
To try and try and never get it right. 
Oh, if I could — oh, if I only might, 
I wouldn't mind what hells I'd have to 

pass. 
Not if the whole world called me fool and 

ass." 



8 DAUBER 

Down sank the crimson sun into the sea, 

The wind cut chill at once, the west grew 
dun. 

"Out sidelights!" called the mate. "Hi, 
where is he?" 

The Boatswain called, "Out sideHghts, damn 
you! Run!" 

"He's always late or lazing," murmured 
one — 

"The Dauber, with his sketching." Soon 
the tints 

Of red and green passed on dark water- 
glints. 

Darker it grew, still darker, and the stars 
Burned golden, and the fiery fishes came. 
The wire-note loudened from the straining 

spars ; 
The sheet-blocks clacked together always 

the same; 



DA UBER 9 

The rushing fishes streaked the seas with 

flame, 
Racing the one speed noble as their own : 
What unknown joy was in those fish un- 
known ! 

Just by the round-house door, as it grew dark. 
The Boatswain caught the Dauber with, 

''Now, you; 
Till now I've spared you, damn you ! now 

you hark: 
I've just had hell for what you didn't do ; 
I'll have you broke and sent among the 

crew 
If you get me more trouble by a particle. 
Don't you forget, you daubing, useless 

article ! 

"You thing, you twice-laid thing from Port 
Mahon!" 



10 DAUBER 

Then came the Cook's "Is that the Dauber 

there ? 
Why don't you leave them stinking paints 

alone ? 
They stink the house out, poisoning all the air. 
Just take them out." ''Wliere to?" ''I 

don't care where. 
I won't have stinking paint here." From 

their plates : 
'^ That's right; wet paint breeds fever," 

growled his mates. 

He took his still wet drawings from the 

berth 
And climbed the ladder to the deck-house 

top; 
Beneath, the noisy half-deck rang with mirth, 
For two ship's boys were putting on the 

strop : 
One, clambering up to let the skylight drop. 



DAUBER 11 

Saw him bend down beneath a boat and lay 
His drawings there, till all were hid away, 

And stand there silent, leaning on the boat, 
Watching the constellations rise and burn, 
Until the beauty took him by the throat. 
So stately is their glittering overturn; 
Armies of marching eyes, armies that yearn 
With banners rising and falling, and pass- 
ing by 
Over the empty silence of the sky. 

The Dauber sighed there looking at the sails, 
Wind-steadied arches leaning on the night. 
The high trucks traced on heaven and left 

no trails; 
The moonlight made the topsails almost 

white, 
The passing sidelight seemed to drip green 

light. 



12 DA UBER 

And on the clipper rushed with fire-bright 

bows; 
He sighed, ''I'll never do't," and left the 

house. 

''Now," said the reefer, "up! Come, Sam; 

come. Si, 
Dauber's been hiding something." Up they 

slid. 
Treading on naked tiptoe stealthily 
To grope for treasure at the long-boat skid. 
"Drawings!" said Sam. "Is this what 

Dauber hid? 
Lord ! I expected pudding, not this rot. 
Still, come, we'll have some fun with what 

we've got." 

They smeared the paint with turpentine 

until 
They could remove with mess-clouts every 

trace 



DAUBER 13 

Of quick perception caught by patient 

skill, 
And lines that had brought blood into his 

face. 
They wiped the pigments off, and did erase. 
With knives, all sticking clots. When they 

had done. 
Under the boat they laid them every one. 

All he had drawn since first he came to sea. 
His six weeks' leisure fruits, they laid them 

there. 
They chuckled then to think how mad 

he'd be 
Finding his paintings vanished into air. 
Eight bells were struck, and feet from 

everywhere 
Went shuffling aft to muster in the dark; 
The mate's pipe glowed above, a dim red 

spark. 



14 DAUBER 

Names in the darkness passed and voices 

cried ; 
The red spark glowed and died, the faces 

seemed 
As things remembered when a brain has 

died, 
To all but high intenseness deeply dreamed. 
Like hissing spears the fishes' fire streamed, 
And on the clipper rushed with tossing 

mast, 
A bath of flame broke round her as she 

passed. 

The watch was set, the night came, and 

the men 
Hid from the moon in shadowed nooks to 

sleep, 
Bunched Uke the dead; still, like the dead, 

as when 
Plague in a city leaves none even to weep. 



DA UBER 15 

The ship's track brightened to a mile- 
broad sweep ; 

The mate there felt her pulse, and eyed 
the spars : 

South-west by south she staggered under 
the stars. 

Down in his bunk the Dauber lay awake 
Thinking of his unfitness for the sea. 
Each failure, each derision, each mistake, 
There in the life not made for such as he; 
A morning grim with trouble sure to be, 
A noon of pain from failure, and a night 
Bitter with men's contemning and despite. 

This in the first beginning, the green leaf, 
Still in the Trades before bad weather fell ; 
What harvest would he reap of hate and 

grief 
When the loud Horn made every life a hell ? 



16 DAUBER 

When the sick ship lay over, clanging her 
bell, 

And no time came for painting or for draw- 
ing, 

But all hands fought, and icy death came 
clawing ? 

Hell, he expected, — hell. His eyes grew 

blind ; 
The snoring from his messmates droned 

and snuffled. 
And then a gush of pity calmed his mind. 
The cruel torment of his thought was 

muffled. 
Without, on deck, an old, old, seaman 

shuffled, 
Humming his song, and through the open 

door 
A moonbeam moved and thrust along the 

floor. 



DAUBER 17 

The green bunk curtains moved, the brass 
rings clicked, 

The Cook cursed in his sleep, turning and 
turning. 

The moonbeams' moving finger touched 
and picked. 

And all the stars in all the sky were burn- 
ing. 

''This is the art I've come for, and am 
learning. 

The sea and ships and men and travelling 
things. 

It is most proud, whatever pain it brings." 

He leaned upon his arm and watched the 

fight 
Sliding and fading to the steady roll; 
This he would some day paint, the ship 

at night. 
And sleeping seamen tired to the soul; 



18 DAUBEB 

The space below the bunks as black as coal, 
Gleams upon chests, upon the unlit lamp. 
The ranging door hook, and the locker 
clamp. 

This he would paint, and that, and all these 

scenes. 
And proud ships carrying on, and men 

their minds, 
And blues of rollers toppling into greens. 
And shattering into white that bursts and 

blinds, 
And scattering ships running erect like 

hinds, 
And men in oilskins beating down a sail 
High on the yellow yard, in snow, in hail. 

With faces ducked down from the slant- 
ing drive 

Of half-thawed hail mixed with half-frozen 
spray, 



DAUBER 19 

The roaring canvas like a thing aHve, 
Shaking the mast, knocking their hands 

away, 
The foot-ropes jerking to the tug and sway, 
The savage eyes salt-reddened at the rims. 
And icicles on the south-wester brims. 

And sunnier scenes would grow under his 

brush, 
The tropic dawn with all things dropping 

dew. 
The darkness and the wonder and the hush, 
The insensate grey before the marvel grew; 
Then the veil lifted from the trembling blue, 
The walls of sky burst in, the flower, the 

rose. 
All the expanse of heaven a mind that glows. 

He turned out of his bunk; the Cook still 
tossed. 



20 DAUBER 

One of the other two spoke in his sleep. 
A cockroach scuttled where the moonbeam 

crossed ; 
Outside there was the ship, the night, the 

deep. 
"It is worth while," the youth said; ''I 

will keep 
To my resolve, I'll learn to paint all this. 
My Lord, my God, how beautiful it is!" 

Outside was the ship's rush to the wind's 

hurry, 
A resonant wire-hum from every rope, 
The broadening bow-wash in a fiery flurry, 
The leaning masts in their majestic slope, 
And all things strange with moonhght : 

filled with hope 
By all that beauty going as man bade, 
He turned and slept in peace. Eight bells 

were made. 



DAUBER 21 

II 

Next day was Sunday, his free painting 

day, 
While the fine weather held, from eight 

till eight. 
He rose when called at five, and did array 
The round-house gear, and set the kit-bags 

straight ; 
Then kneeling down, like housemaid at a 

grate, 
He scrubbed the deck with sand until his 

knees 
Were blue with dye from his wet dungarees. 

Soon all was clean, his Sunday tasks were 

done ; 
His day was clear for painting as he chose. 
The wetted decks were drying in the 

sun, 



22 DAUBER 

The men coiled up, or swabbed, or sought 

repose. 
The drifts of silver arrows fell and rose 
As flying fish took wing; the breakfast 

passed, 
Wasting good time, but he was free at last. 

Free for two hours and more to tingle deep, 
Catching a likeness in a line or tint. 
The canvas running up in a proud sweep. 
Wind-wrinkled at the clews, and white 

like lint. 
The glittering of the blue waves into glint; 
Free to attempt it all, the proud ship's 

pawings, 
The sea, the sky — he went to fetch his 

drawings. 

Up to the deck-house top he quickly 
climbed, 



DAUBER 23 

He stooped to find them underneath the 

boat. 
He found them all obliterated, slimed, 
Blotted, erased, gone from him Une and 

note. 
They were all spoiled : a lump came in his 

throat. 
Being vain of his attempts, and tender 

skinned — 
Beneath the skylight watching reefers 

grinned. 

He clambered down, holding the ruined 

things. 
''Bosun," he called, ''look here, did you 

do these : 
Wipe off my paints and cut them into 

strings, 
And smear them till you can't tell chalk 

from cheese? 



24 DAUBER 

Don't stare, but did you do it? Answer, 

please." 
The Bosun turned: "I'll give you a thick 

ear ! 
Do it ? I didn't. Get to hell from here ! 

''I touch your stinking daubs? The 
Dauber's daft." 

A crowd was gathering now to hear the 
fun; 

The reefers tumbled out, the men laid aft. 

The Cook blinked, cleaning a mess kid in 
the sun. 

''What's up with Dauber now?" said every- 
one. 

"Someone has spoiled my drawings — look 
at this!" 

"Well, that's a dirty trick, by God, it is!" 

"It is," said Sam, "a low-down dirty trick. 



DA USER 25 

To spoil a fellow's work in such a way, 
And if you catch him, Dauber, punch him 

sick, 
For he deserves it, be he who he may." 
A seaman shook his old head wise and grey. 
"It seems to me," he said, ''who ain't no 

judge, 
Them drawings look much better now 

they're smudge." 

''Where were they, Dauber? On the deck- 
house? Where?" 
"Under the long-boat, in a secret place." 
"The blackguard must have seen you put 

them there. 
He is a swine ! I tell him to his face : 
I didn't think we'd anyone so base." 
"Nor I," said Dauber. "There was six 

weeks' time 
Just wasted in these drawings : it's a crime !" 



26 DAUBER 

"Well, don't you say we did it," growled 
his mates, 

''And as for crime, be damned ! the things 
were smears — 

Best overboard, like you, with shot for 
weights ; 

Thank God they're gone, and now go shake 
your ears." 

The Dauber listened, very near to tears. 

"Dauber, if I were you," said Sam again, 

"I'd aft, and see the Captain and com- 
plain." 

A sigh came from the assembled seamen 

there. 
Would he be such a fool for their delight 
As go to tell the Captain? Would he 

dare? 
And would the thunder roar, the lightning 

smite? 



DAUBER 27 

There was the Captain come to take a sight, 
Handhng his sextant by the chart-house aft. 
The Dauber turned, the seamen thought 
him daft. 

The Captain took his sights — a mate be- 
low- 
Noted the times; they shouted to each 

other. 
The Captain quick with "Stop," the answer 

slow. 
Repeating slowly one height then another. 
The swooping clipper stumbled through 

the smother, 
The ladder brasses in the sunlight burned, 
The Dauber waited till the Captain turned. 

There stood the Dauber, humbled to the 

bone, 
Waiting to speak. The Captain let him wait, 



28 DAUBER 

Glanced at the course, and called in even 

tone, 
"What is the man there wanting, Mr. 

Mate?" 
The logship clattered on the grating straight, 
The reel rolled to the scuppers with a 

clatter. 
The Mate came grim: "Well, Dauber, 

what's the matter?" 

"Please, sir, they spoiled my drawings." 

"Who did?" "They." 
"Who's they?" "I don't quite know, sir." 

"Don't quite know, sir? 
Then why are you aft to talk about it, hey ? 
Whom d'you complain of?" "No one." 

"No one?" "No, sir." 
"Well, then, go forward till you've found 

them. Go, sir. 
If you complain of someone, then I'll see. 



DAUBER 29 

Now get to hell ! and don't come bothering 



me. 



''But, sir, they washed them off, and some 

they cut. 
Look here, sir, how they spoiled them." 

''Never mind. 
Go shove your head inside the scuttle butt, 
And that will make you cooler. You will find 
Nothing like water when you're mad and 

blind. 
Where were the drawings ? in your chest, 

or where?" 
"Under the long-boat, sir; I put them 

there." 

"Under the long-boat, hey? Now mind 

your tip. 
I'll have the skids kept clear with nothing 

round them; 



30 DAUBER 

The long-boat ain't a store in this here ship. 
Lucky for you it wasn't I who found them. 
If I had seen them, Dauber, I'd have drowned 

them. 
Now you be warned by this. I tell you 

plain — 
Don't stow your brass-rags under boats 

again. 

''Go forward to your berth." The Dauber 

turned. 
The Usteners down below them winked and 

smiled. 
Knowing how red the Dauber's temples 

burned. 
Having lost the case about his only child. 
His work was done to nothing and defiled. 
And there was no redress : the Captain's voice 
Spoke, and called "Painter," making him 

rejoice. 



DAUBER 31 

The Captain and the Mate conversed to- 
gether. 
"Drawings, you tell me, Mister?" ''Yes, 

sir; views: 
Wiped off with turps, I gather that's his 

blether. 
He says they're things he can't afford to 

lose. 
He's Dick, who came to sea in dancing 

shoes, 
And found the dance a bear dance. They 

were hidden 
Under the long-boat's chocks, which I've 

forbidden." 

''Wiped off with turps?" The Captain 
sucked his lip. 

"Who did it. Mister?" "Reefers, I sup- 
pose; 

Them devils do the most pranks in a ship; 



32 DAUBER 

The round-house might have done it, Cook 

or Bose." 
"I can't take notice of it till he knows. 
How does he do his work?" ''Well, no 

offence ; 
He tries; he does his best. He's got no 



''Painter," the Captain called; the Dauber 

came. 
"What's all this talk of drawings? What's 

the matter?" 
"They spoiled my drawings, sir." "Well, 

who's to blame ? 
The long-boat's there for no one to get at 

her; 
You broke the rules, and if you choose to 

scatter 
Gear up and down where it's no right to be. 
And suffer as result, don't come to me. 



DAVBER 33 

''Your place is in the round-house, and 

your gear 
Belongs where you belong. Who spoiled 

your things? 
Find out who spoiled your things and fetch 

him here." 
"But, sir, they cut the canvas into strings." 
"I want no argument nor questionings. 
Go back where you belong and say no more. 
And please remember that you're not on 

shore." 

The Dauber touched his brow and slunk 
away — 

They eyed his going with a bitter eye. 

"Dauber," said Sam, "what did the Cap- 
tain say?" 

The Dauber drooped his head without 
reply. 

"Go forward, Dauber, and enjoy your cry." 

D 



34 DAUBER 

The Mate limped to the rail; like little 

feet 
Over his head the drumming reef-points 

beat. 
The Dauber reached the berth and entered 

in. 
Much mockery followed after as he went, 
And each face seemed to greet him with 

the grin 
Of hounds hot following on a creature 

spent. 
"Aren't you a fool?" each mocking visage 

meant. 
"Who did it, Dauber? What did Captain 

say? 
It is a crime, and there'll be hell to pay." 

He bowed his head, the house was full of 

smoke ; 
The Sails was pointing shackles on his chest. 



DAUBER 35 

''Lord, Dauber, be a man and take a 

joke"- 
He puffed his pipe — ''and let the matter 

rest. 
Spit brown, my son, and get a hairy breast ; 
Get shoulders on you at the crojick braces, 
And let this painting business go to blazes. 

"What good can painting do to anyone? 
I don't say never do it ; far from that — 
No harm in sometimes painting just for 

fun. 
Keep it for fun, and stick to what you're 

at. 
Your job's to fill your bones up and get 

fat; 
Rib up like Barney's bull, and thick your 

neck. 
Throw paints to hell, boy; you belong on 

deck." 



36 DAUBER 

"That's right," said Chips; ''it's down- 
right good advice. 

Painting's no good; what good can paint- 
ing do 

Up on a lower topsail stiff with ice, 

With all your little fish-hooks frozen blue? 

Painting won't help you at the weather 
clew, 

Nor pass your gaskets for you, nor make 
sail. 

Painting's a balmy job not worth a nail." 

The Dauber did not answer ; time was pass- 
ing. 

He pulled his easel out, his paints, his stool. 

The wind was dropping, and the sea was 
glassing — 

New realms of beauty waited for his rule; 

The draught out of the crojick kept him 
cool. 



DAUBER 37 

He sat to paint, alone and melancholy. 
''No turning fools," the Chips said, ''from 
their folly." 

He dipped his brush and tried to fix a line. 
And then came peace, and gentle beauty came, 
Turning his spirit's water into wine, 
Lightening his darkness with a touch of 

flame : 
O, joy of trying for beauty, ever the same. 
You never fail, your comforts never end; 
O, balm of this world's way; O, perfect 

friend ! 



Ill 



They lost the Trades soon after; then 
came calm. 

Light little gusts and rain, which soon in- 
creased 



38 DAUBER 

To glorious northers shouting out a psalm 
At seeing the bright blue water silver 

fleeced ; 
Hornwards she rushed, trampling the seas 

to yeast. 
There fell a rain-squall in a blind day's end 
When for an hour the Dauber found a 

friend. 

Out of the rain the voices called and passed, 
The stay-sails flogged, the tackle yanked 

and shook. 
Inside the harness-room a lantern cast 
Light and wild shadows as it ranged its 

hook. 
The watch on deck was gathered in the 

nook, 
They had taken shelter in that secret place, 
Wild light gave wild emotions to each 

face. 



DA UBER 39 

One beat the beef-cask, and the others sang 

A song that had brought anchors out of 
seas 

In ports where bells of Christians never 
rang, 

Nor any sea mark blazed among the trees. 

By forlorn swamps, in ice, by windy keys. 

That song had sounded; now it shook the 
air 

From these eight wanderers brought to- 
gether there. 

Under the poop-break, sheltering from 

the rain, 
The Dauber sketched some likeness of 

the room, 
A note to be a prompting to his brain, 
A spark to make old memory reillume. 
''Dauber," said someone near him in the 

gloom, 



40 DAUBER 

''How goes it, Dauber?" It was reefer 

Si. 
"There's not much use in trying to keep 

dry." 

They sat upon the sail-room doorway coam- 
ing, 

The lad held forth like youth, the Dauber 
listened 

To how the boy had had a taste for roam- 
ing, 

And what the sea is said to be and isn't. 

Where the dim lamplight fell the wet deck 
glistened. 

Si said the Horn was still some weeks away, 

"But tell me, Dauber, where d'you hail 
from? Eh?" 

The rain blew past and let the stars appear ; 
The seas grew larger as the moonlight. grew; 



DAUBER 41 

For half an hour the ring of heaven was 

clear, 
Dusty with moonlight, grey rather than 

blue ; 
In that great moon the showing stars were 

few. 
The sleepy time-boy's feet passed overhead. 
"I come from out past Gloucester," Dauber 

said; 

"Not far from Pauntley, if you know those 

parts ; 
The place is Spital Farm, near Silver Hill, 
Above a trap-hatch where a mill-stream 

starts. 
We had the mill once, but we've stopped 

the mill ; 
My dad and sister keep the farm on still. 
We're only tenants, but we've rented there, 
Father and son, for over eighty year. 



42 DA UBER 

''Father has worked the farm since grand- 

fer went ; 
It means the world to him; I can't think 

why. 
They bleed him to the last half-crown for 

rent, 
And this and that have almost milked him 

dry. 
The land's all starved; if he'd put money 

by, 

And corn was up, and rent was down two- 
thirds. . . . 

But then they aren't, so what's the use of 
words. 

''Yet still he couldn't bear to see it pass 
To strangers, or to think a time would come 
When other men than us would mow the 

grass, 
And other names than ours have the home. 



DAUBER 43 

Some sorrows come from evil thought, 

but some 
Comes when two men are near, and both are 

blind 
To what is generous in the other's mind. 

''I was the only boy, and father thought 
I'd farm the Spital after he was dead, 
And many a time he took m.e out and taught 
About manures and seed-corn white and 

red, 
And soils and hops, but I'd an empty head : 
Harvest or seed, I would not do a turn — 
I loathed the farm, I didn't want to learn. 

''He did not mind at first, he thought it 

youth 
Feeling the collar, and that I should change. 
Then time gave him some inklings of the 

truth, 



44 DAUBER 

And that I loathed the farm, and wished 

to range. 
Truth to a man of fifty's always strange; 
It was most strange and terrible to him 
That I, his heir, should be the devil's limb. 

"Yet still he hoped the Lord might change 

my mind. 
I'd see him bridle-in his wrath and hate, 
And almost break my heart he was so kind, 
Biting his lips sore with resolve to wait. 
And then I'd try awhile ; but it was Fate : 
I didn't want to learn ; the farm to me 
Was mire and hopeless work and misery. 

"Though there were things I loved about 
it, too — 

The beasts, the apple-trees, and going hay- 
ing. 

And then I tried ; but no, it wouldn't do. 



DAUBER 45 

The farm was prison, and my thoughts 

were straying. 
And there 'd come father, with his grey head, 

praying, 
'O, my dear son, don't let the Spital pass; 
It's my old home, boy, where your grand- 

fer was. 

"'And now you won't learn farming; you 

don't care. 
The old home's nought to you. I've tried 

to teach you ; 
I've begged Almighty God, boy, all I dare. 
To use His hand if word of mine won't 

reach you. 
Boy, for your granfer's sake I do beseech 

you. 
Don't let the Spital pass to strangers. 

Squire 
Has said he'd give it you if we require. 



46 DA UBER 

"'Your mother used to walk here, boy, 

with me; 
It was her favourite walk down to the mill ; 
And there we'd talk how little death would be, 
Knowing our work was going on here still. 
You've got the brains, you only want the 

will — 
Don't disappoint your mother and your 

father. 
I'll give you time to travel, if you'd rather.' 

"But, no, I'd wander up the brooks to read. 
Then sister Jane would start with nagging 

tongue. 
Saying my sin made father's heart to bleed, 
And how she feared she'd live to see me 

hung. 
And then she'd read me bits from Dr. Young. 
And when we three would sit to supper, Jane 
Would fillip dad till dad began again. 



DAUBER 47 

'''I've been here all my life, boy. I was 

born 
Up in the room above — looks on the mead. 
I never thought you'd cockle my clean 

corn, 
And leave the old home to a stranger's 

seed. 
Father and I have made here 'thout a 

weed : 
We've give our lives to make that. Eighty 

years. 
And now I go down to the grave in tears.' 

*'And then I'd get ashamed and take off 

coat. 
And work maybe a week, ploughing and 

sowing 
And then I'd creep away and sail my boat. 
Or watch the water when the mill was 

going. 



48 DAUBER 

That's my delight — to be near water flow- 
ing, 
Dabbling or sailing boats or jumping stanks, 
Or finding moorhens' nests along the 
banks. 

"And one day father found a ship I'd 

built ; 
He took the cart-whip to me over that, 
And I, half mad with pain, and sick with 

guilt, 
Went up and hid in what we called the flat, 
A dusty hole given over to the cat. 
She kittened there; the kittens had worn 

paths 
Among the cobwebs, dust, and broken 

laths. 

"And putting down my hand between the 
beams 



DA UBER 49 

I felt a leathery thing, and pulled it clear: 
A book with white cocoons stuck in the 

seams. 
Where spiders had had nests for many a 

year. 
It was my mother's sketch-book; hid, I 

fear, 
Lest dad should ever see it. Mother's life 
Was not her own while she was father's 

wife. 

"There were her drawings, dated, pencilled 
faint. 

March was the last one, eighteen eighty- 
three, 

Unfinished that, for tears had smeared the 
paint. 

The rest was landscape, not yet brought 
to be. 

That was a holy afternoon to me; 



50 DAUBER 

That book a sacred book; the flat a place 
Where I could meet my mother face to face. 

''She had found peace of spirit, mother 

had, 
Drawing the landscape from the attic there — 
Heart-broken, often, after rows with dad, 
Hid like a wild thing in a secret lair. 
That rotting sketch-book showed me how 

and where 
I, too, could get away ; and then I knew 
That drawing was the work I longed to do. 

''Drawing became my life. I drew, I 

toiled, 
And every penny I could get I spent 
On paints and artist's matters, which I 

spoiled 
Up in the attic to my heart's content. 
Till one day father asked me what I meant ; 



DAUBEB 51 

The time had come, he said, to make an 

end. 
Now it must finish : what did I intend ? 

''Either I took to farming, hke his son, 
In which case he would teach me, early 

and late 
(Provided that my daubing mood was done), 
Or I must go : it must be settled straight. 
If I refused to farm, there was the gate. 
I was to choose, his patience was all gone, 
The present state of things could not go on. 

''Sister was there; she eyed me while he 

spoke. 
The kitchen clock ran down and struck the 

hour. 
And something told me father's heart was 

broke. 
For all he stood so set and looked so sour. 



52 DAUBER 

Jane took a duster, and began to scour 
A pewter on the dresser; she was crying. 
I stood stock still a long time, not replying. 

*'Dad waited, then he snorted and turned 

round. 
^ Well, think of it,' he said. He left the room, 
His boots went clop along the stony ground 
Out to the orchard and the apple-bloom. 
A cloud came past the sun and made a 

gloom ; 
I swallowed with dry lips, then sister turned. 
She was dead white but for her eyes that 

burned. 

"'You're breaking father's heart, Joe,' she 

began ; 
'It's not as if ' she checked, in too 

much pain. 
'0, Joe, don't help to kill so fine a man; 



DA UBER 53 

You're giving him our mother over again. 
It's wearing him to death, Joe, heart and 

brain ; 
You know what store he sets on leaving 

this 
To (it's too cruel) — to a son of his. 

"^Yet you go painting all the day. O, 

Joe, 
Couldn't you make an effort? Can't you 

see 
What folly it is of yours? It's not as 

though 
You are a genius or could ever be. 
O, Joe, for father's sake, if not for me. 
Give up this craze for painting, and be wise 
And work with father, where your duty 

lies.' 

"'It goes too deep,' I said; 'I loathe the 
farm; 



54 DAUBER 

I couldn't help, even if I'd the mind. 
Even if I helped, I'd only do him harm ; 
Father would see it, if he were not blind. 
I was not built to farm, as he would find. 
0, Jane, it's bitter hard to stand alone 
And spoil my father's life or spoil my own.' 

'"Spoil both,' she said, 'the way you're 

shaping now. 
You're only a boy not knowing your own 

good. 
Where will you go, suppose you leave here? 

How 
Do you propose to earn your daily food? 
Draw? Daub the pavements? There's 

a feckless brood 
Goes to the devil daily, Joe, in cities 
Only from thinking how divine their wit is. 

'''Clouds are they, without water, carried 
away. 



DA USER 55 

And you'll be one of them, the way you're 

going, 
Daubing at silly pictures all the day, 
And praised by silly fools who're always 

blowing. 
And you choose this when you might go 

a-sowing, 
Casting the good corn into chosen mould 
That shall in time bring forth a hundred- 
fold.' 

*'So we went on, but in the end it ended. 
I felt I'd done a murder; I felt sick. 
There's much in human minds cannot be 

mended, 
And that, not I, played dad a cruel trick. 
There was one mercy : that it ended quick. 
I went to join my mother's brother : he 
Lived down the Severn. He was kind to 

me. 



56 DAUBER 

"And there I learned house-painting for 

a Hving. 
I'd have been happy there, but that I knew 
I'd sinned before my father past for- 
giving, 
And that they sat at home, that silent two, 
Wearing the fire out and the evening 

through. 
Silent, defeated, broken, in despair, 
My plate unset, my name gone, and my 
chair. 

''I saw all that; and sister Jane came 

white — 
White as a ghost, with fiery, weeping 

eyes. 
I saw her all day long and half the night. 
Bitter as gall, and passionate and wise. 
'Joe, you have killed your father: there 

he lies. 



DAUBER 57 

You have done your work — you with our 

mother's ways.' 
She said it plain, and then her eyes would 

blaze. 

"And then one day I had a job to do 
Down below bridge, by where the docks 

begin, 
And there I saw a clipper towing through, 
Up from the sea that morning, entering in. 
Raked to the nines she was, lofty and thin. 
Her ensign ruffling red, her bunts in pile. 
Beauty and strength together, wonder, style. 

*' She docked close to the gates, and there 

she lay 
Over the water from me, well in sight ; 
And as I worked I watched her all the day. 
Finding her beauty ever fresh delight. 
Her house-flag was bright green with strips 

of white; 



58 DAUBER 

High in the sunny air it rose to shake 
Above the skysail poles' most splendid 
rake. 

"And when I felt unhappy I would look 
Over the river at her; and her pride, 
So calm, so quiet, came as a rebuke 
To half the passionate pathways which I 

tried ; 
And though the autumn ran its term and 

died, 
And winter fell and cold December came. 
She was still splendid there, and still the 

same. 

''Then on a day she sailed; but when she 

went 
My mind was clear on what I had to try : 
To see the sea and ships, and what they 

meant, 



DAUBER 59 

That was the thing I longed to do ; so I 
Drew and worked hard, and studied and put 

by, 
And thought of nothing else but that one 

end, 
But let all else go hang — love, money, 

friend. 

"And now I've shipped as Dauber I've 
begun. 

It was hard work to find a dauber's berth ; 

I hadn't any friends to find me one, 

Only my skill, for what it may be worth; 

But I'm at sea now, going about the earth. 

And when the ship's paid ofT, when we re- 
turn, 

I'll join some Paris studio and learn." 

He stopped, the air came moist, Si did not 
speak ; 



60 DAUBER 

The Dauber turned his eyes to where he 

sat, 
Pressing the sail-room hinges with his 

cheek, 
His face half covered with a drooping 

hat. 
Huge dewdrops from the stay-sails dropped 

and spat. 
Si did not stir, the Dauber touched his 

sleeve ; 
A little birdlike noise came from a sheave. 

Si was asleep, sleeping a calm deep sleep. 
Still as a warden of the Egyptian dead 
In some old haunted temple buried deep 
Under the desert sand, sterile ' and red. 
The Dauber shook his arm; Si jumped and 

said, 
''Good yarn, I swear! I say, you have a 

brain — 



DAUBER 61 

Was that eight bells that went?" He 
slept again. 

Then waking up, "I've had a nap," he cried. 
''Was that one bell? What, Dauber, you 

still here?" 
''Si there?" the Mate's voice called. "Sir," 

he replied. 
The order made the lad's thick vision clear; 
A something in the Mate's voice made him 

fear. 
"Si," said the Mate, "I hear you've made 

a friend — 
Dauber, in short. That friendship's got 

to end. 

"You're a young gentleman. Your place 

aboard 
Is with the gentlemen abaft the mast. 
You're learning to command; you can't 

afford 



62 DAUBER 

To yarn with any man. But there . . . 

it's past. 
You've done it once; let this time be the 

last. 
The Dauber's place is forward. Do it 

again, 
I'll put you bunking forward with the men. 

''Dismiss." Si went, but Sam, beside the 

Mate, 
Timekeeper there, walked with him to the 

rail 
And whispered him the menace of ''You 

wait" — 
Words which have turned full many a reefer 

pale. 
The watch was changed ; the watch on deck 

trimmed sail. 
Sam, going below, called all the reefers 

down, 



DAUBER 63 

Sat in his bunk and eyed them with a frown. 

''Si here," he said, ''has soiled the half- 
deck's name 

Talking to Dauber — Dauber, the ship's 
clout. 

A reefer takes the Dauber for a flame, 

The half-deck take the round-house walking 
out. 

He's soiled the half-deck's honour ; now, no 
doubt, 

The Bosun and his mates will come here 
sneaking, 

Asking for smokes, or blocking gangways 
speaking. 

"I'm not a vain man, given to blow or boast ; 
I'm not a proud man, but I truly feel 
That while I've bossed this mess and ruled 
this roast 



64 DAUBER 

I've kept this hooker's half-deck damned 

genteel. 
Si must ask pardon, or be made to squeal, 
Down on your knees, dog ; them we love 

we chasten. 
Jao, pasea, my son — in English, Hasten." 

Si begged for pardon, meekly kneeling 

down 
Before the reefer's mess assembled grim. 
The lamp above them smoked the glass all 

brown ; 
Beyond the door the dripping sails were 

dim. 
The Dauber passed the door; none spoke 

to him. 
He sought his berth and slept, or, waking, 

heard 
Rain on the deck-house — rain, no other 

word. 



DAUBER 65 

IV 

Out of the air a time of quiet came, 
Calm fell upon the heaven like a drouth; 
The brass sky watched the brassy water 

flame. 
Drowsed as a snail the clipper loitered south 
Slowly, with no white bone across her 

mouth ; 
No rushing glory, like a queen made bold. 
The Dauber strove to draw her as she 

rolled. 

There the four leaning spires of canvas 

rose. 
Royals and skysails lifting, gently lifting, 
White like the brightness that a great fish 

blows 
When billows are at peace and ships are 

drifting ; 

F 



66 DA UBER 

With mighty jerks that set the shadows 

shifting, 
The courses tugged their tethers : a blue 

haze 
Drifted like ghosts of flocks come down to 

graze. 

There the great skyline made her perfect 
round, 

Notched now and then by the sea's deeper 
blue; 

A smoke-smutch marked a steamer home- 
ward bound, 

The haze wrought all things to intenser 
hue. 

In tingling impotence the Dauber drew 

As all men draw, keen to the shaken 
soul 

To give a hint that might suggest the 
whole. 



DAUBER 67 

A naked seaman washing a red shirt 
Sat at a tub whistling between his teeth; 
Complaining blocks quavered hke some- 
thing hurt. 
A sailor cut an old boot for a sheath, 
The ship bowed to her shadow-ship beneath, 
And little slaps of spray came at the roll 
On to the deck-planks from the scupper- 
hole. 

He watched it, painting patiently, as 

paints. 
With eyes that pierce behind the blue sky's 

veil. 
The Benedictine in a Book of Saints 
Watching the passing of the Holy Grail; 
The green dish dripping blood, the trump, 

the hail, 
The spears that pass, the memory and the 

passion, 



68 DAUBER 

The beauty moving under this world's 
fashion. 

But as he painted, slowly, man by man, 
The seamen gathered near ; the Bosun stood 
Behind him, jeering; then the Sails began 
Sniggering with comment that it was not 

good. 
Chips flicked his sketch with little scraps 

of wood. 
Saying, "That hit the top-knot," every 

time. 
Cook mocked, "My lovely drawings; it's 

a crime.". 

Slowly the men came nearer, till a crowd 
Stood at his elbow, muttering as he drew; 
The Bosun, turning to them, spoke aloud, 
"This is the ship that never got there. 

You 
Look at her here, what Dauber's trying to do. 



DAUBER 69 

Look at her ! lummy, like a Christmas-tree. 
That thing's a ship ; he calls this painting. 
See?" 

Seeing the crowd, the Mate came forward ; 

then 
"Sir," said the Bosun, "come and see the 

sight ! 
Here's Dauber makes a circus for the men. 
He calls this thing a ship — this hell's 

delight!" 
"Man," said the Mate, "you'll never get 

her right 
Daubing like that. Look here!" He 

took a brush. 
"Now, Dauber, watch; I'll put you to the 

blush. 

"Look here. Look there. Now watch this 
ship of mine." 



70 DAUBER 

He drew her swiftly from a memory stored. 
''God, sir," the Bosun said, ''you do her 

fine!" 
"Ay," said the Mate, "I do so, by the Lord ! 
I'll paint a ship with any man aboard." 
They hung about his sketch like beasts at 

bait. 
"There now, I taught him painting," said 

the Mate. 

When he had gone, the gathered men dis- 
persed ; 

Yet two or three still lingered to dispute 

What errors made the Dauber's work 
the worst. 

They probed his want of knowledge to the 
root. 

"Bei Gott!" they swore, "der Dauber 
cannot do 't ; 

He haf no knolich how to put der pense. 



DAUBER 71 

Der Mate's is goot. Der Dauber haf no 
sense." 

''You hear?" the Bosun cried, "you can- 
not do it!" 

"A gospel truth," the Cook said, ''true 
as hell ! 

And wisdom, Dauber, if you only knew it; 

A five year boy would do a ship as well." 

"If that's the kind of thing you hope to sell, 

God help you," echoed Chips. "I tell 
you true. 

The job's beyond you. Dauber; drop it, 
do. 

"Drop it, in God's name drop it, and have 

done ! 
You see you cannot do it. Here's the 

Mate 
Paints you to frazzles before everyone; 



72 DAUBER 

Paints you a dandy clipper while you wait. 
While you, Lord love us, daub. I tell you 

straight, 
We've had enough of daubing ; drop it ; quit. 
You cannot paint, so make an end of it." 

"That's sense," said all; "you cannot, why 

pretend?" 
The Dauber rose and put his easel by. 
"You've said enough," he said, "now let 

it end. 
Who cares how bad my painting may 

be? I 
Mean to go on, and, if I fail, to try. 
However much I miss of my intent, 
If I have done my best I'll be content. 

"You cannot understand that. Let it be. 
You cannot understand, nor know, nor 
share. 



DAUBER 73 

This is a matter touching only me; 

My sketch may be a daub, for aught I 

care. 
You may be right. But even if you were, 
Your mocking should not stop this work 

of mine ; 
Rot though it be, its prompting is divine. 

''You cannot understand that — you, and 
you, 

And you, you Bosun. You can stand and 
jeer. 

That is the task your spirit fits you to, 

That you can understand and hold most 
dear. 

Grin, then, like collars, ear to donkey ear. 

But let me daub. Try, you, to under- 
stand 

Which task will bear the light best on God's 
hand." 



74 DAUBEB 



The wester came as steady as the Trades; 

Brightly it blew, and still the ship did 
shoulder 

The brilliance of the water's white cockades 

Into the milky green of smoky smoulder. 

The sky grew bluer and the air grew colder. 

Southward she thundered while the westers 
held, 

Proud, with taut bridles, pawing, but com- 
pelled. 

And still the Dauber strove, though all men 

mocked, 
To draw the splendour of the passing thing, 
And deep inside his heart a something 

locked. 
Long pricking in him, now began to sting — 
A fear of the disasters storm might bring; 



DA UBER 75 

His rank as painter would be ended then — 
He would keep watch and watch like other 
men. 

And go aloft with them to man the yard 
When the great ship was rolling scuppers 

under, 
Burying her snout all round the compass 

card, 
While the green water struck at her and 

stunned her; 
When the lee-rigging slacked, when one 

long thunder 
Boomed from the black to windward, when 

the sail 
Booted and spurred the devil in the gale 

For him to ride on men : that was the 

time 
The Dauber dreaded; then the test would 

come, 



76 DAUBER 

When seas, half-frozen, slushed the decks 

with slime, 
And all the air was blind with flying scum; 
When the drenched sails were furled, when 

the fierce hum 
In weather riggings died into the roar 
Of God's eternal never tamed by shore. 

Once in the passage he had worked aloft, 
Shifting her suits one summer afternoon. 
In the bright Trade wind, when the wind 

was soft. 
Shaking the points, making the tackle 

croon. 
But that was child's play to the future: 

soon 
He would be ordered up when sails and 

spars 
Were flying and going mad among the 

stars. 



DAUBER 77 

He had been scared that first time, daunted, 

thrilled, 
Not by the height so much as by the size, 
And then the danger to the man unskilled 
In standing on a rope that runs through eyes. 
''But in a storm," he thought, "the yards 

will rise 
And roll together down, and snap their 

gear !" 
The sweat came cold upon his palms for fear. 

Sometimes in Gloucester he had felt a pang 
Swinging below the house-eaves on a stage. 
But stages carry rails; here he would hang 
Upon a jerking rope in a storm's rage. 
Ducked that the sheltering oilskin might 

assuage 
The beating of the storm, clutching the 

jack, 
Beating the sail, and being beaten back. 



78 BAUBEB 

Drenched, frozen, gasping, blinded, beaten 

dumb, 
High in the night, reeling great blinding 

arcs 
As the ship rolled, his chappy fingers numb, 
The deck below a narrow blur of marks, 
The sea a welter of whiteness shot with 

sparks. 
Now snapping up in bursts, now dying 

away, 
Salting the horizontal snow with spray. 

A hundred and fifty feet above the deck, 
And there, while the ship rolls, boldly to 

sit 
Upon a foot-rope moving, jerk and check, 
While half a dozen seamen work on it ; 
Held by one hand, straining, by strength 

and wit 
To toss a gasket's coil around the yard. 



DAUBER 79 

How could he compass that when blowing 
hard ? * 

And if he failed in any least degree, 
Or faltered for an instant, or showed slack. 
He might go drown himself within the sea. 
And add a bubble to the chpper's track. 
He had signed his name, there was no turn- 
ing back, 
No pardon for default — this must be done. 
One iron rule at sea binds everyone. 

Till now he had been treated with con- 
tempt 
As neither man nor thing, a creature borne 
On the ship's articles, but left exempt 
From all the seamen's life except their 

scorn. 
But he would rank as seaman off the Horn, 
Work as a seaman, and be kept or cast 
By standards set for men before the mast. 



80 DAUBER 

Even now they shifted suits of sails; they 

bent 
The storm-suit ready for the expected time ; 
The mighty wester that the Plate had lent 
Had brought them far into the wintry clime. 
At dawn, out of the shadow, there was 

rime. 
The dim Magellan Clouds were frosty clear, 
The wind had edge, the testing-time was 

near. 

And then he wondered if the tales were 

lies 
Told by old hands to terrify the new. 
For, since the ship left England, only 

twice 
Had there been need to start a sheet or 

clew. 
Then only royals, for an hour or two. 
And no seas broke aboard, nor was it cold. 



DAUBER 81 

What were these gales of which the stories 
told? 

The thought went by. He had heard the 

Bosun tell 
Too often, and too fiercely, not to know 
That being off the Horn in June is hell : 
Hell of continual toil in ice and snow. 
Frostbitten hell in which the westers blow 
Shrieking for days on end, in which the 

seas 
Gulf the starved seamen till their marrows 

freeze. 

Such was the weather he might look to 
find, 

Such was the work expected : there re- 
mained 

Firmly to set his teeth, resolve his mind. 

And be the first, however much it pained. 



82 DAUBER 

And bring his honour round the Horn un- 
stained, 

And win his mates' respect; and thence, 
untainted. 

Be ranked as man however much he 
painted. 

He drew deep breath ; a gantline swayed 

aloft 
A lower topsail, hard with rope and 

leather. 
Such as men's frozen fingers fight with oft 
Below the Ramirez in Cape Horn weather. 
The arms upon the yard hove all together, 
Lighting the head along ; a thought occurred 
Within the painter's brain like a bright 

bird: 

That this, and so much like it, of man's 
toil, 



DAUBEB 83 

Compassed by naked manhood in strange 

places, 
Was all heroic, but outside the coil 
Within which modern art gleams or grim- 
aces; 
That if he drew that Hne of sailor's faces 
Sweating the sail, their passionate play and 

change. 
It would be new, and wonderful, and 
strange. 

That that was what his work meant; it 

would be 
A training in new vision — a reveaUng 
Of passionate men in battle with the 

sea, 
High on an unseen stage, shaking and 

reeling ; 
And men through him would understand 

their feeling, 



84 DA UBER 

Their might, their misery, their tragic 

power, 
And all by suffering pain a little hour; 

High on the yard with them, feeling their 

pain. 
Battling with them; and it had not been 

done. 
He was a door to new worlds in the brain, 
A window opening letting in the sun, 
A voice saying, ''Thus is bread fetched 

and ports won. 
And life lived out at sea where men exist 
Solely by man's strong brain and sturdy 

wrist." 

So he decided, as he cleaned his brasses. 
Hearing without, aloft, the curse, the shout 
Where the taut gantline passes and re- 
passes. 



DAUBER 85 

Heaving new topsails to be lighted out. 
It was most proud, however self might 

doubt, 
To share man's tragic toil and paint it true. 
He took the offered Fate : this he would 

do. 

That night the snow fell between six and 

seven, 
A little feathery fall so light, so dry — 
An aimless dust out of a confused heaven. 
Upon an air no steadier than a sigh ; 
The powder dusted down and wandered by 
So purposeless, so many, and so cold. 
Then died, and the wind ceased and the 

ship rolled. 

Rolled till she clanged — rolled till the 

brain was tired, 
Marking the acme of the heaves, the 

pause 



86 DA UBER 

While the sea-beauty rested and respired, 
Drinking great draughts of roller at her 

hawse. 
Flutters of snow came aimless upon flaws. 
''Lock up your paints," the Mate said, 

speaking light : 
"This is the Horn; you'll join my watch 

to-night!" 



VI 



All through the windless night the clipper 

rolled 
In a great swell with oily gradual heaves 
Which rolled her down until her time-bells 

tolled, 
Clang, and the weltering water moaned 

like beeves. 
The thundering rattle of slatting shook the 

sheaves, 



DA UBER 87 

Startles of water made the swing ports 
gush, 

The sea was moaning and sighing and say- 
ing ''Hush!" 

It was all black and starless. Peering 

down 
Into the water, trying to pierce the gloom, 
One saw a dim, smooth, oily glitter of 

brown 
Heaving and dying away and leaving 

room 
For yet another. Like the march of doom 
Came those great powers of marching 

silences ; 
Then fog came down, dead-cold, and hid 

the seas. 

They set the Dauber to the foghorn. There 
He stood upon the poop, making to sound 



88 DAUBEB 

Out of the pump the sailor's nasal blare, 
Listening lest ice should make the note 

resound. 
She bayed there like a solitary hound 
Lost in a covert ; all the watch she 

bayed. 
The fog, come closelier down, no answer 

made. 

Denser it grew, until the ship was lost. 
The elemental hid her ; she was merged 
In mufflings of dark death, like a man's 

ghost, 
New to the change of death, yet thither 

urged. 
Then from the hidden waters something 

surged — 
Mournful, despairing, great, greater than 

speech, 
A noise like one slow wave on a still beach. 



DAUBER 89 

Mournful, and then again mournful, and 
still 

Out of the night that mighty voice arose; 

The Dauber at his foghorn felt the thrill. 

Who rode that desolate sea? What forms 
were those? 

Mournful, from things defeated, in the 
throes 

Of memory of some conquered hunting- 
ground. 

Out of the night of death arose the sound. 

''Whales!" said the Mate. They stayed 

there all night long 
Answering the horn. Out of the night 

they spoke, 
Defeated creatures who had suffered wrong, 
But were still noble underneath the stroke. 
They filled the darkness when the Dauber 

woke; 



90 DAUBER 

The men came peering to the rail to hear, 
And the sea sighed, and the fog rose up 
sheer. 

A wall of nothing at the world's last edge. 
Where no life came except defeated life. 
The Dauber felt shut in within a hedge, 
Behind which form was hidden and thought 

was rife, 
And that a blinding flash, a thrust, a knife 
Would sweep the hedge away and make 

all plain, 
Brilliant beyond all words, blinding the 

brain. 

So the night passed, but then no morning 

broke — 
Only a something showed that night was 

dead. 
A sea-bird, cackling like a devil, spoke, 



DAUBER 91 

And the fog drew away and hung Hke 
lead. 

Like mighty chffs it shaped, sullen and red ; 

Like glowering gods at watch it did ap- 
pear, 

And sometimes drew away, and then drew 
near. 

Like islands, and like chasms, and like hell, 
But always mighty and red, gloomy and 

ruddy. 
Shutting the visible sea in Hke a well; 
Slow heaving in vast ripples, blank and 

muddy. 
Where the sun should have risen it streaked 

bloody. 
The day was still-born; all the sea-fowl 

scattering 
Splashed the still water, mewing, hovering, 

clattering. 



92 DAUBER 

Then Polar snow came down little and 

light, 
Till all the sky was hidden by the small, 
Most multitudinous drift of dirty white 
Tumbling and wavering down and covering 

all — 
Covering the sky, the sea, the clipper tall. 
Furring the ropes with white, casing the 

mast. 
Coming on no known air, but blowing past. 

And all the air seemed full of gradual 

moan. 
As though in those cloud-chasms the horns 

were blowing 
The mort for gods cast out and overthrown. 
Or for the eyeless sun plucked out and 

going. 
Slow the low gradual moan came in the 

snowing ; 



DAUBER 93 

The Dauber felt the prelude had begun. 
The snowstorm fluttered by; he saw the 
sun 

Show and pass by, gleam from one towering 

prison 
Into another, vaster and more grim. 
Which in dull crags of darkness had arisen 
To muffle-to a final door on him. 
The gods upon the dull crags lowered dim, 
The pigeons chattered, quarrelling in the 

track. 
In the south-west the dimness dulled to 

black. 

Then came the cry of "Call all hands on 

deck!" 
The Dauber knew its meaning; it was 

come: 
Cape Horn, that tramples beauty into wreck. 



94 DA UBER 

And crumples steel and smites the strong 
man dumb. 

Down clattered flying kites and staysails : 
some 

Sang out in quick, high calls : the fair- 
leads skirled, 

And from the south-west came the end of 
the world. 

''Caught in her ball-dress," said the Bosun, 

hauling ; 
"Lee-ay, lee-ay!" quick, high, came the 

men's call ; 
It was all wallop of sails and startled calling. 
''Let fly!" "Let go!" "Clew up!" and 

"Let go all!" 
"Now up and make them fast!" "Here, 

give us a haul !" 
"Now up and stow them! Quick! By 

God ! we're done !" 



DAUBER 95 

The blackness crunched all memory of the 
sun. 

''Up!" said the Mate. ''Mizen top- 
gallants. Hurry!" 

The Dauber ran, the others ran, the sails 

Slatted and shook ; out of the black a 
flurry 

Whirled in fine lines, tattering the edge 
to trails. 

Painting and art and England were old 
tales 

Told in some other life to that pale man. 

Who struggled with white fear and gulped 
and ran. 

He struck a ringbolt in his haste and fell — 
Rose, sick with pain, half-lamed in his left 

knee; 
He reached the shrouds where clambering 

men pell-mell 



96 DAUBER 

Hustled each other up and cursed him; 
he 

Hurried aloft with them : then from the 
sea 

Came a cold, sudden breath that made 
the hair 

Stiff on the neck, as though Death whis- 
pered there. 

A man below him punched him in the 

side. 
''Get up, you Dauber, or let me get past." 
He saw the belly of the skysail skied, 
Gulped, and clutched tight, and tried to 

go more fast. 
Sometimes he missed his ratline and was 

grassed, 
Scraped his shin raw against the rigid line. 
The clamberers reached the futtock- 

shrouds' incline. 



DAUBER 97 

Cursing they came; one, kicking out be- 
hind, 

Kicked Dauber in the mouth, and one be- 
low 

Punched at his calves ; the futtock-shrouds 
inclined 

It was a perilous path for one to go. 

''Up, Dauber, up!" A curse followed a 
blow. 

He reached the top and gasped, then on, 
then on. 

And one voice yelled ''Let go!" and one 
"All gone!" 

Fierce clamberers, some in oilskins, some 

in rags. 
Hustling and hurrying up, up the steep 

stairs. 
Before the windless sails were blown to 

flags, 

H 



98 DAUBER 

And whirled like dirty birds athwart great airs, 
Ten men in all, to get this mast of theirs 
Snugged to the gale in time. ''Up! Damn 

you, run !" 
The mizen topmast head was safely won. 

''Layout!" the Bosun yelled. The Dauber 

laid 
Out on the yard, gripping the yard, and 

feeling , 
Sick at the mighty space of air displayed 
Below his feet, where mewing birds were 

wheeling. 
A giddy fear was on him ; he was reeling. 
He bit his lip half through, clutching the 

jack. 
A cold sweat glued the shirt upon his 

back. 

The yard was shaking, for a brace was 
loose. 



DAUBER 99 

He felt that he would fall; he clutched, 

he bent, 
Clammy with natural terror to the shoes 
While idiotic promptings came and went. 
Snow fluttered on a wind-flaw and was 

spent ; 
He saw the water darken. Someone yelled, 
'Trap it; don't stay to furl! Hold on!" 

He held. 

Darkness came down — half darkness — in 

a whirl; 
The sky went out, the waters disappeared. 
He felt a shocking pressure of blowing hurl 
The ship upon her side. The darkness 

speared 
At her with wind; she staggered, she 

careered, 
Then down she lay. The Dauber felt her 

go; 



100 DAUBER 

He saw his yard tilt downwards. Then 
the snow 

Whirled all about — dense, multitudinous, 

cold — 
Mixed with the wind's one devilish thrust 

and shriek. 
Which whiffled out men's tears, deafened, 

took hold, 
Flattening the flying drift against the 

cheek. 
The yards buckled and bent, man could not 

speak. 
The ship lay on her broadside; the wind's 

sound 
Had devilish malice at having got her 

downed. 

How long the gale had blown he could not 
tell. 



DAUBER 101 

Only the world had changed, his life had 

died. 
A moment now was everlasting hell. 
Nature an onslaught from the weather 

side, 
A withering rush of death, a frost that 

cried, 
Shrieked, till he withered at the heart ; a 

hail 
Plastered his oilskins with an icy mail. 

''Cut !" yelled his mate. He looked — the 

sail was gone. 
Blown into rags in the first furious squall ; 
The tatters drummed the devil's tattoo. 

On 
The buckling yard a block thumped like 

a mall. 
The ship lay — the sea smote her, the 

wind's bawl 



102 DAUBER 

Came, ''loo, loo, loo!" The devil cried 

his hounds 
On to the poor spent stag strayed in his 

bounds. 

"Cut! Ease her!" yelled his mate; the 

Dauber heard. 
His mate wormed up the tilted yard and 

slashed, 
A rag of canvas skimmed like a darting bird. 
The snow whirled, the ship bowed to it, 

the gear lashed, 
The sea-tops were cut off and flung down 

smashed ; 
Tatters of shouts were flung, the rags of 

yells — 
And clang, clang, clang, below beat the 

two bells. 

"0 God!" the Dauber moaned. A roar- 
ing rang, 



DAUBER 103 

Blasting the royals like a cannonade; 

The backstays parted with a cracking clang, 

The upper spars were snapped like twigs 
decayed — 

Snapped at their heels, their jagged splin- 
ters splayed, 

Like white and ghastly hair erect with fear. 

The Mate yelled, ''Gone, by God, and 
pitched them clear!" 

"Up!" yelled the Bosun; ''up and clear 

the wreck !" 
The Dauber followed where he led : below 
He caught one giddy glimpsing of the deck 
Filled with white water, as though heaped 

with snow. 
He saw the streamers of the rigging blow 
Straight out like pennons from the splin- 
tered mast. 
Then, all sense dimmed, all was an icy blast 



104 DAUBER 

Roaring from nether hell and filled with ice, 
Roaring and crashing on the jerking stage, 
An utter bridle given to utter vice, 
Limitless power mad with endless rage 
Withering the soul ; a minute seemed an 

age. 
He clutched and hacked at ropes, at rags 

of sail. 
Thinking that comfort was a fairy-tale 

Told long ago — long, long ago — long since 
Heard of in other lives — imagined, 

dreamed — 
There where the basest beggar was a prince 
To him in torment where the tempest 

screamed, 
Comfort and warmth and ease no longer 

seemed 
Things that a man could know : soul, body, 

brain. 



DAUBER 105 

Knew nothing but the wind, the cold, the 
pain. 

"Leave that!" the Bosun shouted; ''Cro- 

jick save !" 
The spUtting crojick, not yet gone to rags. 
Thundered below, beating till something 

gave, 
Bellying between its buntlines into bags. 
Some birds were blown past, shrieking: 

dark, like shags, 
Their backs seemed, looking down. *'Leu, 

leu !" they cried. 
The ship lay, the seas thumped her; she 

had died. 

They reached the crojick yard, which 

buckled, buckled 
Like a thin whalebone to the topsail's 

strain. 



106 DAUBER 

They laid upon the yard and heaved and 

knuckled, 
Pounding the sail, which jangled and leapt 

again. 
It was quite hard with ice, its rope hke 

chain, 
Its strength like seven devils; it shook the 

mast. 
They cursed and toiled and froze: a long 

time passed. 

Two hours passed, then a dim lightening 

came. 
Those frozen ones upon the yard could 

see 
The mainsail and the foresail still the same, 
Still battling with the hands and blowing 

free, 
Rags tattered where the staysails used to 

be. 



DAUBER 107 

The lower topsails stood; the ship's lee 

deck 
Seethed with four feet of water filled with 

wreck. 

An hour more went by; the Dauber lost 
All sense of hands and feet, all sense of all 
But of a wind that cut him to the ghost, 
And of a frozen fold he had to haul, 
Of heavens that fell and never ceased to 

fall, 
And ran in smoky snatches along the sea, 
Leaping from crest to wave-crest, yelling. 

He 

Lost sense of time; no bells went, but he 

felt 
Ages go over him. At last, at last 
They f rapped the cringled crojick's icy pelt ; 
In frozen bulge and bunt they made it fast. 



108 DAUBER 

Then, scarcely live, they laid in to the mast. 
The Captain's speaking trumpet gave a 

blare, 
"Make fast the topsail. Mister, while you're 

there." 

Some seamen cursed, but up they had to 

go — 
Up to the topsail yard to spend an hour 
Stowing a topsail in a blinding snow, 
Which made the strongest man among them 

cower. 
More men came up, the fresh hands gave 

them power, 
They stowed the sail; then with a rattle 

of chain 
One half the crojick burst its bonds again. 

They stowed the sail, frapping it round with 
rope, 



BA UBER 109 

Leaving no surface for the wind, no fold, 
Then down the weather shrouds, half dead, 

they grope ; 
That struggle with the sail had made them 

old. 
They wondered if the crojiek furl would 

hold. 
''Lucky," said one, "it didn't spring the 

spar." 
"Lucky!" the Bosun said, "Lucky! We 

are ! 

She came within two shakes of turning 

top 
Or stripping all her shroud-screws, that 

first quiff. 
Now fish those wash-deck buckets out of 

the slop. 
Here's Dauber says he doesn't like Cape 

Stifif. 



110 DAUBER 

This isn't wind, man, this is only a whiff. 
Hold on, all hands, hold on!" a sea, half 

seen, 
Paused, mounted, burst, and filled the 

main-deck green. 

The Dauber felt a mountain of water fall. 
It covered him deep, deep, he felt it fill, 
Over his head, the deck, the fife-rails, all, 
Quieting the ship, she trembled and lay 

still. 
Then with a rush and shatter and clang- 
ing shrill 
Over she went ; he saw the water cream 
Over the bitts ; he saw the half-deck 
stream. 

Then in the rush he swirled, over she went ; 
Her lee-rail dipped, he struck, and some- 
thing gave; 



DAUBER 111 

His legs went through a port as the roll 

spent ; 
She paused, then rolled, and back the water 

drave. 
He drifted with it as a part of the wave. 
Drowning, half-stunned, exhausted, partly 

frozen. 
He struck the booby hatchway; then the 

Bosun 

Leaped, seeing his chance, before the next 

sea burst, 
And caught him as he drifted, seized him, 

held. 
Up-ended him against the bitts, and cursed. 
"This ain't the George's Swimming Baths," 

he yelled ; 
''Keep on your feet!" Another grey-back 

felled 
The two together, and the Bose, half-blind, 



112 DAUBER 

Spat: "One's a joke," he cursed, "but 
two's unkind." 

"Now, damn it, Dauber!" said the Mate. 

"Look out, 
Or you'll be over the side!" The water 

freed ; 
Each clanging freeing-port became a spout. 
The men cleared up the decks as there was 

need. 
The Dauber's head was cut, he felt it bleed 
Into his oilskins as he clutched and coiled. 
Water and sky were devils' brews which 

boiled, 

Boiled, shrieked, and glowered ; but the 

ship was saved. 
Snugged safely down, though fourteen sails 

were split. 
Out of the dark a fiercer fury raved. 



DAUBER 113 

The grey-backs died and mounted, each 

crest ht 
With a white toppUng gleam that hissed 

from it 
And sUd, or leaped, or ran with whirls of 

cloud, 
Mad with inhuman life that shrieked aloud. 

The watch was called ; Dauber might go 

below. 
''Splice the main brace!" the Mate called. 

All laid aft 
To get a gulp of momentary glow 
As some reward for having saved the 

craft. 
The steward ladled mugs, from which each 

quaff'd 
Whisky, with water, sugar, and hme-juice, 

hot, 
A quarter of a pint each made the tot. 



114 DAUBER 

Beside the lamp-room door the steward 

stood 
Ladling it out, and each man came in turn, 
Tipped his sou'-wester, drank it, grunted 

''Good!" 
And shambled forward, letting it slowly 

burn : 
When all were gone the Dauber lagged 

astern, 
Torn by his frozen body's lust for heat, 
The liquor's pleasant smell, so warm, so 

sweet, 

And by a promise long since made at home 
Never to taste strong liquor. Now he 

knew 
The worth of liquor; now he wanted 

some. 
His frozen body urged him to the brew; 
Yet it seemed wrong, an evil thing to do 



DAUBER 115 

To break that promise. ''Dauber," said 

the Mate, 
"Drink, and turn in, man; why the hell 

d'ye wait?" 

''Please, sir, I'm temperance." "Temper- 
ance are you, hey? 

That's all the more for me ! So you're 
for slops? 

I thought you'd had enough slops for to- 
day. 

Go to your bunk and ease her when she 
drops. 

And — damme, steward ! you brew with 
too much hops ! 

Stir up the sugar, man ! — and tell your girl 

How kind the Mate was teaching you to 
furl." 

Then the Mate drank the remnants, six 
men's share, 



116 DAUBER 

And ramped into his cabin, where he 

stripped 
And danced unclad, and was uproarious 

there. 
In waltzes with the cabin cat he tripped, 
Singing in tenor clear that he was pipped — 
That '^he who strove the tempest to dis- 
arm, 
Must never first embrail the lee yard- 
arm," 

And that his name was Ginger. Dauber 

crept 
Back to the round-house, gripping by the 

rail. 
The wind howled by ; the passionate water 

leapt ; 
The night was all one roaring with the gale. 
Then at the door he stopped, uttering a 

wail; 



DAUBER 117 

His hands were perished numb and blue as 

veins, 
He could not turn the knob for both the 

Spains. 

A hand came shuffling aft, dodging the seas. 
Singing "her nut-brown hair" between his 

teeth ; 
Taking the ocean's tumult at his ease 
Even when the wash about his thighs did 

seethe. 
His soul was happy in its happy sheath ; 
''What, Dauber, won't it open? Fingers 

cold? 
You'll talk of this time. Dauber, when 

you're old." 

He flung the door half open, and a sea 
Washed them both in, over the splash- 
board, down; 



118 DAUBER 

''You silly, salt miscarriage!" sputtered 

he. 
"Dauber, pull out the plug before wr 

drown ! 
That's spoiled my laces and my velvet 

gown. 
Where is the plug?" Groping in pitch 

dark water, 
He sang between his teeth "The Farmer's 

Daughter." 

It was pitch dark within there ; at each roll 
The chests slid to the slant ; the water 

rushed, 
Making full many a clanging tin pan bowl 
Into the black below-bunks as it gushed. 
The dog-tired men slept through it ; they 

were hushed. 
The water drained, and then with matches 

damp 



DAUBER 119 

The man struck heads off till he lit the lamp. 

''Thank you," the Dauber said; the sea- 
man grinned. 

''This is your first foul weather?" ''Yes." 
"I thought 

Up on the yard you hadn't seen much wind. 

Them's rotten sea-boots, Dauber, that you 
brought. 

Now I must cut on deck before I'm 
caught." 

He went ; the lamp-flame smoked ; he 
slammed the door; 

A film of water loitered across the floor. 

The Dauber watched it come and watched 

it go; 
He had had revelation of the lies 
Cloaking the truth men never choose to 

know; 



120 DAUBER 

He could bear witness now and cleanse 

their eyes. 
He had beheld in suffering ; he was wise ; 
This was the sea, this searcher of the soul — 
This never-dying shriek fresh from the 

Pole. 

He shook with cold ; his hands could not 

undo 
His oilskin buttons, so he shook and sat, 
Watching his dirty fingers, dirty blue. 
Hearing without the hammering tackle slat, 
Within, the drops from dripping clothes 

went pat, 
Running in little patters, gentle, sweet. 
And ''Ai, ai !" went the wind, and the 

seas beat. 

His bunk was sopping wet ; he clambered 
in. 



BAUBEB 121 

None of his clothes were dry; his fear 

recurred. 
Cramps bunched the muscles underneath 

his skin. 
The great ship rolled until the lamp was 

blurred. 
He took his Bible and tried to read a word ; 
Trembled at going aloft again, and then 
Resolved to fight it out and show it to 

men. 

Faces recurred, fierce memories of the yard, 
The frozen sail, the savage eyes, the jests. 
The oaths of one great seaman, syphihs- 

scarred, 
The tug of leeches jammed beneath their 

chests, 
The buntlines bellying bunts out into 

breasts. 
The deck so desolate-grey, the sky so wild, 



122 DAUBER 

He fell asleep, and slept like a young 
child. 

But not for long; the cold awoke him 
soon, 

The hot-ache and the skin-cracks and the 
cramp. 

The seas thundering without, the gale's 
wild tune, 

The sopping misery of the blankets damp. 

A speaking-trumpet roared ; a sea-boot's 
stamp 

Clogged at the door. A man entered to 
shout : 

"All hands on deck! Arouse here! Tum- 
ble out!" 

The caller raised the lamp ; his oilskins 

clicked 
As the thin ice upon them cracked and 

fell. 



DAUBER 123 

''Rouse out!" he said. ''This lamp is 

frozen wick'd. 
Rouse out!" His accent deepened to a 

yell. 
"We're among ice; it's blowing up like 

hell. 
We're going to hand both topsails. Time, 

I guess, 
We're sheeted up. Rouse out ! Don't 

stay to dress !" 

"Is it cold on deck?" said Dauber. "Is 

it cold? 
We're sheeted up, I tell you, inches thick ! 
The fo'c'sle's like a wedding-cake, I'm 

told. 
Now tumble out, my sons; on deck here, 

quick ! 
Rouse out, away, and come and climb the 

stick. 



124 DAUBER 

I'm going to call the half-deck. Bosun ! 

Hey! 
Both topsails coming in. Heave out ! 

Away !" 

He went; the Dauber tumbled from his 

bunk, 
Clutching the side. He heard the wind go 

past, 
Making the great ship wallow as if drunk. 
There was a shocking tumult up the mast. 
"This is the end," he muttered, ''come at 

last ! 
I've got to go aloft, facing this cold. 
I can't. I can't. I'll never keep my hold. 

''I cannot face the topsail yard again. 
I never guessed what misery it would be." 
The cramps and hot-ache made him sick 
with pain. 



DAUBER 125 

The ship stopped suddenly from a devihsh 

sea, 
Then, with a triumph of wash, a rush of 

glee, 
The door burst in, and in the water rolled. 
Filling the lower bunks, black, creaming, 

cold. 

The lamp sucked out. ''Wash!" went 

the water back. 
Then in again, flooding ; the Bosun swore. 
''You useless thing! You Dauber! You 

lee slack ! 
Get out, yon heekapoota ! Shut the door ! 
You coo-ilyaira, what are you waiting 

for? 
Out of my way, you thing — you useless 

thing!" 
He slammed the door indignant, clanging 

the ring. 



126 DAUBER 

And then he Ut the lamp, drowned to the 
waist ; 

''Here's a fine house! Get at the scupper- 
holes"— 

He bent against it as the water raced — 

"And pull them out to leeward when she 
rolls. 

They say some kinds of landsmen don't 
have souls. 

I well believe. A Port Mahon baboon 

Would make more soul than you got with 
a spoon." 

Down in the icy water Dauber groped 
To find the plug ; the racing Vv^ater sluiced 
Over his head and shoulders as she sloped. 
Without, judged by the sound, all hell was 

loosed. 
He felt cold Death about him tightly 

noosed. 



DAUBER 127 

That Death was better than the misery 

there 
Iced on the quaking foothold high in air. 

And then the thought came : "Vm sl failure. 

All 
My life has been a failure. They were 

right. 
It will not matter if I go and fall; 
I should be free then from this hell's de- 

hght. 
I'll never paint. Best let it end to-night. 
I'll slip over the side. I've tried and 

failed." 
So in the ice-cold in the night he quailed. 

Death would be better, death, than this 

long hell 
Of mockery and surrender and dismay — 
This long defeat of doing nothing v;ell, 



128 BAUBEE 

Playing the part too high for him to 

play. 
''O Death ! who hides the sorry thing away, 
Take me ; I've failed. I cannot play these 

cards." 
There came a thundering from the topsail 

yards. 

And then he bit his lips, clenching his 
mind. 

And staggered out to muster, beating back 

The coward frozen self of him that whined. 

Come what cards might he meant to play 
the pack. 

"Ai!" screamed the wind; the topsail 
sheet went clack; 

Ice filled the air with spikes; the grey- 
backs burst. 

''Here's Dauber," said the Mate, ''on deck 
the first. 



DAUBER 129 

''Why, holy sailor, Dauber, you're a man! 
I took you for a soldier. Up now, come!" 
Up on the yards already they began 
That battle with a gale which strikes men 

dumb. 
The leaping topsail thundered like a drum. 
The frozen snow beat in the face like shots. 
The wind spun whipping wave-crests into 

clots. 

So up upon the topsail yard again, 
In the great tempest's fiercest hour, began 
Probation to the Dauber's soul, of pain 
Which crowds a century's torment in a span. 
For the next month the ocean taught this 

man, 
And he, in that month's torment, while 

she wested. 
Was never warm nor dry, nor full nor 

rested. 



130 DA UBER 

But still it blew, or, if it lulled, it rose 
Within the hour and blew again ; and still 
The water as it burst aboard her froze. 
The wind blew off an ice-field, raw and chill, 
Daunting man's body, tampering with his 

will ; 
But after thirty days a ghostly sun 
Gave sickly promise that the storms were 

done. 

VII 

A GREAT grey sea was running up the sky, 
Desolate birds flew past; their mewings 

came 
As that lone water's spiritual cry. 
Its forlorn voice, its essence, its soul's name. 
The ship limped in the water as if lame. 
Then in the forenoon watch to a great 

shout 



DAUBER 131 

More sail was made, the reefs were shaken 
out. 

A slant came from the south; the singers 

stood 
Clapped to the halliards, hauling to a tune, 
Old as the sea, a fillip to the blood. 
The upper topsail rose like a balloon. 
''So long. Cape Stiff. In Valparaiso 

soon," 
Said one to other, as the ship lay over, 
Making her course again — again a rover. 

Slowly the sea went down as the wind 

fell. 
Clear rang the songs, ''Hurrah! Cape Horn 

is bet!" 
The combless seas were lumping into swell ; 
The leaking fo'c'sles were no longer wet. 
More sail was made; the watch on deck 

was set 



132 DAUBER 

To cleaning up the ruin broken bare 
Below, aloft, about her, everywhere. 

The Dauber, scrubbing out the round- 
house, found 

Old pantiles pulped among the mouldy 
gear, 

Washed underneath the bunks and long 
since drowned 

During the agony of the Cape Horn year. 

He sang in scrubbing, for he had done with 
fear — 

Fronted the worst and looked it in the 
face; 

He had got manhood at the testing-place. 

Singing he scrubbed, passing his watch 

below. 
Making the round-house fair; the Bosun 

watched, 



DAUBER 133 

Bringing his knitting slowly to the toe. 
Sails stretched a mizen skysail which he 

patched ; 
They thought the Dauber was a bad egg 

hatched. 
''Daubs," said the Bosun cheerly, "can you 

knit? 
I've made a Barney's bull of this last 

bit." 

Then, while the Dauber counted, Bosun 

took 
Some marUne from his pocket. ''Here," 

he said, 
"You want to know square sennit? So 

fash. Look ! 
Eight foxes take, and stop the ends with 

thread. 
I've known an engineer would give his 

head 



134 DAUBER 

To know square sennit." As the Bose 

began, 
The Dauber felt promoted into man. 

It was his warrant that he had not failed — 

That the most hard part in his difficult 
climb 

Had not been past attainment ; it was 
scaled : 

Safe footing showed above the slippery- 
slime. 

He had emerged out of the iron time, 

And knew that he could compass his life's 
scheme ; 

He had the power sufficient to his dream. 

Then dinner came, and now the sky was 

blue. 
The ship was standing north, the Horn was 

rounded ; 



DAUBER 135 

She made a thundering as she weltered 

through. 
The mighty grey-backs ghttered as she 

bounded. 
More sail was piled upon her; she was 

hounded 
North, while the wind came; like a stag 

she ran 
Over grey hills and hollows of seas wan. 

She had a white bone in her mouth : she 

sped; 
Those in the round-house watched her as 

they ate 
Their meal of pork-fat fried with broken 

bread. 
''Good old!" they cried. ''She's off; she's 

gathering gait !" 
Her track was whitening like a Lammas 

spate. 



136 DAUBER 

''Good old!" they cried. ''Oh, give her 

cloth ! Hurray ! 
For three weeks more to Valparaiso Bay ! 

"She smells old VaUipo," the Bosun cried. 
"We'll be inside the tier in three weeks 

more, 
Lying at double-moorings where they ride 
Off of the market, half a mile from shore. 
And bumboat pan, my sons, and figs galore. 
And girls in black mantillas fit to make a 
Poor seaman frantic when they dance the 

cueca." 

Eight bells were made, the watch was 

changed, and now 
The Mate spoke to the Dauber: "This is 

better. 
We'll soon be getting mudhooks over the 

bow. 



DAUBEB 137 

She'll make her passage still if this'U let 

her. 
Oh, run, you drogher ! dip your fo'c'sle 

wetter. 
Well, Dauber, this is better than Cape 

Horn. 
Them topsails made you wish you'd not 

been born." 

"Yes, sir," the Dauber said. ''Now," said 
the Mate, 

"We've got to smart her up. Them Cape 
Horn seas 

Have made her paint-work like a rusty grate. 

Oh, didn't them topsails make your fish- 
hooks freeze? 

A topsail don't pay heed to 'Won't you, 
please ? ' 

Well, you have seen Cape Horn, my son; 
you've learned. 



138 DA USER 

You've dipped your hand and had your 
fingers burned. 

''And now you'll stow that folly, trying 

to paint. 
You've had your lesson; you're a sailor 

now. 
You come on board a female ripe to faint. 
All sorts of slush you'd learned, the Lord 

knows how. 
Cape Horn has sent you wisdom over the 

bow 
If you've got sense to take it. You're a 

sailor. 
My God ! before you were a woman's tailor. 

''So throw your paints to blazes and have 

done. 
Words can't describe the silly things you 

did 



DA UBER 139 

Sitting before your easel in the sun, 

With all your colours on the paint-box 

Hd. 
I blushed for you . . . and then the daubs 

you hid. 
My God ! you'll have more sense now, eh ? 

You've quit?" 
"No, sir." "You've not?" "No, sir." 

"God give you wit. 

"I thought you'd come to wisdom." Thus 

they talked. 
While the great clipper took her bit and 

rushed 
Like a skin-glistening stallion not yet 

baulked. 
Till fire-bright water at her swing ports 

gushed ; 
Poising and bowing down her fore-foot 

crushed 



140 DA UBER 

Bubble on glittering bubble; on she went. 
The Dauber watched her, wondering what 
it meant. 

To come, after long months, at rosy dawn. 
Into the placid blue of some great bay. 
Treading the quiet water like a fawn 
Ere yet the morning haze was blown away. 
A rose-flushed figure putting by the grey, 
And anchoring there before the city smoke 
Rose, or the church-bells rang, or men 
awoke. 

And then, in the first hght, to see grow 
clear 

That long-expected haven filled with 
strangers — 

Alive with men and women ; see and hear 

Its clattering market and its money- 
changers ; 



DAUBER 141 

And hear the surf beat, and be free from 

dangers, 
And watch the crinkled ocean blue with 

calm 
Drowsing beneath the Trade, beneath the 

palm. 

Hungry for that he worked; the hour 

went by. 
And still the wind grew, still the clipper 

strode. 
And now a darkness hid the western 

sky, 
And sprays came flicking off at the wind's 

goad. 
She stumbled now, feeling her sail a load. 
The Mate gazed hard to windward, eyed 

his sail, 
And said the Horn was going to flick her 

tail. 



142 DAUBER 

Boldly he kept it on her till she staggered, 

But still the wind increased; it grew, it 
grew. 

Darkening the sky, making the water hag- 
gard ; 

Full of small snow the mighty wester blew. 

''More fun for little fish-hooks," sighed 
the crew. 

They eyed the taut topgallants stiff like 
steel ; 

A second hand was ordered to the wheel. 

The Captain eyed her aft, sucking his lip. 
Feeling the sail too much, but yet refrain- 
ing 
From putting hobbles on the leaping ship. 
The glad sea-shattering stallion, halter- 
straining. 
Wing-musical, uproarious, and complain- 
ing; 



DAUBER .143 

But, in a gust, he cocked his finger, so: 
''You'd better take them off, before they 
go." 

All saw. They ran at once without the 
word 

''Lee-ay! Lee-ay!" Loud rang the clew- 
line cries; 

Sam in his bunk within the half-deck heard. 

Stirred in his sleep, and rubbed his drowsy 
eyes. 

"There go the lower to'gallants." Against 
the skies 

Rose the thin bellying strips of leaping 
sail. 

The Dauber was the first man over the 
rail. 

Three to a mast they ran; it was a race. 
"God!" said the Mate; "that Dauber, 
he can go." 



144 DAUBER 

He watched the runners with an upturned 

face 
Over the futtocks, strugghng heel to toe, 
Up to the topmast cross-trees into the 

blow 
Where the three sails were leaping. 

''Dauber wins !" 
The yards were reached, and now the race 

begins. 

Which three will furl their sail first and 

come down? 
Out to the yard-arm for the leech goes one, 
His hair blown flagwise from a hatless 

crown, 
His hands at work like fever to be done. 
Out of the gale a fiercer fury spun. 
The three sails leaped together, yanking 

high, 
Like talons darting up to clutch the sky. 



DAUBER 146 

The Dauber on the fore-topgallant yard 
Out at the weather yard-arm was the first 
To lay his hand upon the buntline-barred 
Topgallant yanking to the wester's burst; 
He craned to catch the leech ; his comrades 

cursed ; 
One at the buntlines, one with oaths 

observed, 
''The eye of the outer jib-stay isn't 

served." 

"No," said the Dauber. "No," the man 
replied. 

They heaved, stowing the sail, not looking 
round. 

Panting, but full of hfe and eager-eyed; 

The gale roared at them with its iron 
sound. 

"That's you," the Dauber said. His gas- 
ket wound 
li 



146 ' DAUBER 

Swift round the yard, binding the sail in 

bands ; 
There came a gust, the sail leaped from his 

hands. 

So that he saw it high above him, grey. 
And there his mate was falling; quick he 

clutched 
An arm in oilskins swiftly snatched away. 
A voice said ''Christ!" a quick shape 

stooped and touched, 
Chain struck his hands, ropes shot, the sky 

was smutched 
With vast black fires that ran, that fell, 

that furled, , 
And then he saw the mast, the small snow 

hurled, 

The fore-topgallant yard far, far aloft, 
And blankness settling on him and great 
pain; 



DAUBER 147 

And snow beneath his fingers wet and soft, 
And topsail sheet-blocks shaking at the 

chain. 
He knew it was he who had fallen ; then his 

brain 
Swirled in a circle while he watched the sky. 
Infinite multitudes of snow blew by. 

"I thought it was Tom who fell," his brain's 
voice said. 

"Down on the bloody deck!" the Cap- 
tain screamed. 

The multitudinous little snow-flakes sped. 

His pain was real enough, but all else 
seemed. 

Si with a bucket ran, the water gleamed 

Tilting upon him; others came, the 
Mate . . . 

They knelt with eager eyes like things that 
wait 



148 DAUBER 

For other things to come. He saw them 

there. 
''It will go on," he murmured, watching Si. 
Colours and sounds seemed mixing in the 

air, 
The pain was stunning him, and the wind 

went by. 
''More water," said the Mate. "Here, 

Bosun, try. 
Ask if he's got a message. Hell, he's gone ! 
Here, Dauber, paints." He said, "It will 

go on." 

Not knowing his meaning rightly, but he 

spoke 
With the intenseness of a fading soul 
Whose share of Nature's fire turns to smoke, 
Whose hand on Nature's wheel loses 

control. 
The eager faces glowered red like coal. 



DA USER 149 

They glowed, the great storm glowed, the 

sails, the mast. 
''It will go on," he cried aloud, and passed. 

Those from the yard came down to tell 

the tale. 
''He almost had me ofif," said Tom. "He 

shpped. 
There come one hell of a jump-hke from 

the sail. . . . 
He clutched at me and almost had me 

pipped. 
He caught my 'ris'band, but the oilskin 

ripped. . . . 
It tore clean off. Look here. I was near 

gone. 
I made a grab to catch him; so did John. 

"I caught his arm. My God! I was near 
done. 



160 DAUBER 

He almost had me over; it was near. 
He hit the ropes and grabbed at every one." 
''Well," said the Mate, ''we cannot leave 

him here. 
Run, Si, and get the half-deck table clear. 
We'll lay him there. Catch hold there, 

you, and you. 
He's dead, poor son; there's nothing more 

to do." 

Night fell, and all night long the Dauber 

lay 
Covered upon the table; all night long 
The pitiless storm exulted at her prey, 
Huddling the waters with her icy thong. 
But to the covered shape she did no wrong. 
He lay beneath the sailcloth. Bell by 

bell 
The night wore through; the stars rose, 

the stars fell. 



DAUBER 151 

Blowing most pitiless cold out of clear sky 
The wind roared all night long; and all 

night through 
The green seas on the deck went washing by, 
Flooding the half-deck ; bitter hard it blew. 
But little of it all the Dauber knew — 
The sopping bunks, the floating chests, 

the wet, 
The darkness, and the misery, and the 

sweat. 

He was off duty. So it blew all night. 
And when the watches changed the men 

would come 
Dripping within the door to strike a light 
And stare upon the Dauber lying dumb, 
And say, "He come a cruel thump, poor 

chum." 
Or, ''He'd a-been a fine big man;" or, 

"He . . . 



152 BA UBER 

A smart young seaman he was getting to 
be." 

Or, "Damn it all, it's what we've all to 

face ! . . 
I knew another fellow one time ..." then 
Came a strange tale of death in a strange 

place 
Out on the sea, in ships, with wandering 

men. 
In many ways Death puts us into pen. 
The reefers came down tired and looked 

and slept. 
Below the skylight little dribbles crept 

Along the painted woodwork, glistening, 

slow, 
Following the roll and dripping, never fast. 
But dripping on the quiet form below, 
Like passing time talking to time long past. 



DA UBER 153 

And all night long "Ai, ai !" went the wind's 

blast, 
And creaming water swished below the 

pale, 
Unheeding body stretched beneath the sail. 

At dawn they sewed him up, and at eight 

bells 
They bore him to the gangway, wading 

deep, 
Through the green-clutching, white-toothed 

water-hells 
That flung his carriers over in their sweep. 
They laid an old red ensign on the heap, 
And all hands stood bare-headed, stooping, 

swaying, 
Washed by the sea while the old man was 

praying 

Out of a borrowed prayer-book. At a sign 



154 BAUBEB 

They twitched the ensign back and tipped 
the grating 

A creamier bubbling broke the bubbhng 
brine. 

The muffled figure tilted to the weight- 
ing; 

It dwindled slowly down, slowly gyrating. 

Some craned to see; it dinamed, it disap- 
peared ; 

The last green milky bubble blinked and 
cleared. 

''Mister, shake out your reefs," the Cap- 
tain called. 

''Out topsail reefs!" the Mate cried; then 
all hands 

Hurried, the great sails shook, and all hands 
hauled, 

Singing that desolate song of lonely lands, 

Of how a lover came in dripping bands, 



DAUBER 155 

Green with the wet and cold, to tell his 

lover 
That Death was in the sea, and all was 

over. 

Fair came the falling wind; a seaman said 
The Dauber was a Jonah; once again 
The clipper held her course, showing red 

lead, 
Shattering the sea-tops into golden rain. 
The waves bowed down before her like 

blown grain; 
Onwards she thundered, on; her voyage 

was short, 
Before the tier's bells rang her into port. 

Cheerly they rang her in, those beating 

bells. 
The new-come beauty stately from the sea, 
Whitening the blue heave of the drowsy 

swells, 



156 DAUBER 

Treading the bubbles down. With three 

times three 
They cheered her moving beauty in, and 

she 
Came to her berth so noble, so superb ; 
Swayed like a queen, and answered to the 

curb. 

Then in the sunset's flush they went aloft, 
And unbent sails in that most lovely hour, 
When the light gentles and the wind is soft. 
And beauty in the heart breaks like a flower. 
Working aloft they saw the mountain 

tower, 
Snow to the peak; they heard the launch- 
men shout; 
And bright along the bay the lights came 
out. 

And then the night fell dark, and all night 
long 



BA UBER 157 

The pointed mountain pointed at the stars, 
Frozen, alert, austere ; the eagle's song 
Screamed from her desolate screes and 

splintered scars. 
On her intense crags where the air is sparse 
The stars looked down; their many golden 

eyes 
Watched her and burned, burned out, and 

came to rise. 

Silent the finger of the summit stood, 
Icy in pure, thin air, glittering with snows. 
Then the sun's coming turned the peak to 

blood, 
And in the rest-house the muleteers arose. 
And all day long, where only the eagle 

goes. 
Stones, loosened by the sun, fall ; the stones 

falling 
Fill empty gorge on gorge with echoes calling. 



EXPLANATIONS OF SOME OF THE SEA 
TERMS USED IN THE POEM 

Backstays. Wire ropes which support the masts 
against lateral and after strains. 

Barney's bull. A figure in marine proverb. A jewel 
in marine repartee. 

Bells. Two bells (one forward, one aft) which are 
struck every half-hour in a certain manner to 
mark the passage of the watches. 

Bitts. Strong wooden structures (built round each 
mast) upon which running rigging is secured. 

Block. A sheaved pulley. 

Boatswain. A supernumerary or idler, generally at- 
tached to the mate's watch, and holding consid- 
erable authority over the crew. 

Bouilli tin. Any tin that contains, or has contained, 
preserved meat. 

Bows. The forward extremity of a ship. 

Brace-blocks. Pulleys through which the braces 
travel. 

Braces. Ropes by which the yards are inclined for- 
ward or aft. 

Bumboat pan. Soft bread sold by the bumboat man, 
a kind of sea costermonger who trades with ships 
in port. 

Bunt. Those cloths of a square sail which are nearest 
to the mast when the sail is set. The central 
portion of a furled square sail. The human ab- 
domen (figuratively). 

158 



DAUBEB 159 

Buntlines. Ropes which help to confine square sails 

to the yards in the operation of furling. 
Chocks. Wooden stands on which the boats rest. 
Cleats. Iron or wooden contrivances to which ropes 

may be secured. 
Clew-lines. Ropes by which the lower corners of 

square sails are lifted. 
Clews. The lower corners of square sails. 
Clipper. A title of honour given to ships of more 

than usual speed and beauty. 
Coaming. The raised rim of a hatchway; a barrier 

at a doorway to keep water from entering. 
Courses. The large square sails set upon the lower 

yards of saihng ships. The mizen course is called 

the " crojick." 
Cringled. Fitted with iron rings or cringles, many 

of which are let into sails or sail-roping for various 

purposes. 
Crojick (or cross-jack). A square sail set upon the 

lower yard of the mizen mast. 
Dungarees. Thin blue or khaki-coloured overalls 

made from cocoanut fibre. 
Fairleads. Rings of wood or iron by means of which 

running rigging is led in any direction. 
Fife-rails. Strong wooden shelves fitted with iron 

pins, to which ropes may be secured. 
Fish-hooks. I.e., fingers. 
Foot-ropes. Ropes on which men stand when working 

aloft. 
Fo'c'sle. The cabin or cabins in which the men are 

berthed. It is usually an iron deck-house divided 

through the middle into two compartments for 

the two watches, and fitted with wooden bimks. 



160 DAUBER 

Sometimes it is even fitted with lockers and an 
iron water-tank. 

Foxes. Strands, yarns, or arrangements of yarns of 
rope. 

Freeing-ports. Iron doors in the ship's side which 
open outwards to free the decks of water. 

Frap. To wrap round with rope. 

Futtock-shrouds. Iron bars to which the topmast 
rigging is secured. As they project outward and 
upward from the masts they are diflBcult to clam- 
ber over. 

Galley. The ship's kitchen. 

Gantline (girtline). A rope used for the sending of 
sails up and down from aloft. 

Gaskets. Ropes by which the sails are secured in 
furUng. 

Half-deck. A cabin or apartment in which the ap- 
prentices are berthed. Its situation is usually 
the ship's waist ; but it is sometimes further aft, 
and occasionally it is under the poop or even right 
forward under the top-gallant fo'c'sle. 

Halliards. Ropes by which sails are hoisted. 

Harness-room. An office or room from which the 
salt meat is issued, and in which it is sometimes 
stored. 

Hawse. The bows or forward end of a ship. 

Head. The forward part of a ship. That upper 
edge of a square sail which is attached to the yard. 

House-flag. The special flag of the firm to which a 
ship belongs. 

Idlers. The members of the round-house mess, gener- 
ally consisting of the carpenter, cook, sailmaker, 
boatswain, painter, etc., are known as the idlers. 



DAUBEE 161 

Jack (or jackstay). An iron bar (fitted along all yards 
in sailing ships) to which the head of a square 
sail is secured when bent. 

Kites. Light upper sails. 

Leeches. The outer edges of square sails. In furling 
some square sails the leech is dragged inwards 
till it lies level with the head upon the surface of 
the yard. This is done by the first man who gets 
upon the yard, beginning at the weather side. 

Logship. A contrivance by which a ship's speed is 
measured. 

Lower topsail. The second sail from the deck on square 
rigged masts. It is a very strong, important sail. 

Marline. Tarry line or coarse string made of rope- 
yarns twisted together. 

Mate. The First or Chief Mate is generally called the 
Mate. 

Mizen-topmast-head. The summit of the second of 
the three or four spars which make the complete 
mizen-mast. 

Mudhooks. Anchors. 

Pins. Iron or wooden bars to which running rigging 
is secured. 

Pointing. A kind of neat plait with which ropes are 
sometimes ended off or decorated. 

Poop-break. The forward end of the after superstruc- 
ture. 

Ratlines. The rope steps placed across the shrouds 
to enable the seamen to go aloft. 

Reefers. Apprentices. 

Reef-points. Ropes by which the area of some sails 
may be reduced in the operation of reefing. Reef- 
points are securely fixed to the sails fitted with 



162 DAUBER 

them, and when not in use their ends patter con- 
tinually upon the canvas with a gentle drumming 

noise. 
Reel. A part of the machinery used with a logship. 
Round-house. A cabin (of all shapes except round) 

in which the idlers are berthed. 
Royals. Light upper square sails; the fourth, fifth, 

or sixth sails from the deck according to the mast's 

rig. 
Sail-room. A large room or compartment in which 

the ship's sails are stored. 
" Sails." The sailmaker is meant. 
Scuttle-butt. A cask containing fresh water. 
Shackles. Rope handles for a sea-chest. 
Sheet-blocks. Iron blocks, by means of which sails 

are sheeted home. In any violent wind they beat 

upon the mast with great rapidity and force. 
Sheets. Ropes or chains which extend the lower 

corners of square sails in the operation of sheeting 

home. 
Shifting suits (of sails). The operation of removing 

a ship's sails, and replacing them with others. 
Shrouds. Wire ropes of great strength, which support 

lateral strains on masts. 
Shroud-screws. Iron contrivances by which shrouds 

are hove taut. 
Sidelights. A sailing ship carries two of these between 

sunset and sunrise: one green, to starboard; one 

red, to port. 
Sights. Observations to help in the finding of a ship's 

position. 
Skid. A wooden contrivance on which ship's boats 

rest. 



DA UBER 163 

Skysails. The uppermost square sails ; the fifth, sixth, 
or seventh sails from the deck according to the 
mast's rig. 

Slatting. The noise made by sails flogging in the wind. 

Slush. Grease, melted fat. 

South-wester. A kind of oilskin hat. A gale from the 
south-west. 

Spit brown. To chew tobacco. 

Square sennit. A cunning plait which makes a four- 
square bar. 

Staysails. Fore and aft sails set upon the stays be- 
tween the masts. 

Stow. To furl. 

Strop (the, putting on). A strop is a grument or rope 
ring. The two players kneel down facing each 
other, the strop is placed over their heads, and 
the men then try to pull each other over by the 
strength of their neck-muscles. 

Swing ports. Iron doors in the ship's side which open 
outwards to free the decks from water. 

Tackle (pronounced "taykel")- Blocks, ropes, pul- 
leys, etc. 

Take a caulk. To sleep upon the deck. 

Topsails. The second and third sails from the deck 
on the masts of a modern square-rigged ship are 
known as the lower and upper topsails. 

Trucks. The summits of the masts. 

Upper topsail. The third square sail from the deck on 
the masts of square-rigged ships. 

Yards. The steel or wooden spars (placed across masts) 
from which square sails are set. 



BIOGRAPHY 

When I am buried, all my thoughts and acts 
Will be reduced to lists of dates and facts, 
And long before this wandering flesh is 

rotten 
The dates which made me will be all for- 
gotten ; 
And none will know the gleam there used 

to be 
About the feast days freshly kept by me, 
But men will call the golden hour of bhss 
"About this time," or ''shortly after this." 

Men do not heed the rungs by which men 

climb 

Those guttering steps, those milestones upon 

Time, 

165 



166 BIOOBAPHT 

Those tombstones of dead selves, those 

hours of birth, 
Those moments of the soul in years of earth 
They mark the height achieved, the main 

result, 
The power of freedom in the perished cult, 
The power of boredom in the dead man's 

deeds. 
Not the bright moments of the sprinkled 

seeds. 

By many waters and on many ways 

I have known golden instants and bright 

days; 
The day on which, beneath an arching sail, 
I saw the Cordilleras and gave hail; 
The summer day on which in heart's delight 
I saw the Swansea Mumbles bursting white. 
The glittering day when all the waves wore 

flags 



BIOGRAPHY 167 

And the ship Wanderer came with sails in 

rags ; 
That curlew-caUing time in Irish dusk 
When Ufe became more splendid than its 

husk, 
When the rent chapel on the brae at Slains 
Shone with a doorway opening beyond 

brains ; 
The dawn when, with a brace-block's creak- 
ing cry. 
Out of the mist a httle barque slipped by, 
SpiUing the mist with changing gleams of 

red, 
Then gone, with one raised hand and one 

turned head; 
The howling evening when the spindrift's 

mists 
Broke to display the four Evangelists, 
Snow-capped, divinely granite, lashed by 

breakers, 



168 BIOORAPHT 

Wind-beaten bones of long since buried 

acres ; 
The night alone near water when I heard 
All the sea's spirit spoken by a bird ; 
The English dusk when I beheld once more 
(With eyes so changed) the ship, the citied 

shore, 
The lines of masts, the streets so cheerly 

trod 
(In happier seasons) and gave thanks to 

God. 
All had their beauty, their bright moments' 

gift, 
Their something caught from Time, the 

ever-swift. 

All of those gleams were golden; but life's 

hands 
Have given more constant gifts in changing 

lands. 



BIOGRAPHY 169 

And when I count those gifts, I think them 

such 
As no man's bounty could have bettered 

much: 
The gift of country hfe, near hills and 

woods 
Where happy waters sing in soHtudes, 
The gift of being near ships, of seeing each 

day 
A city of ships with great ships under 

weigh, 
The great street paved with water, filled 

with shipping, 
And all the world's flags flying and seagulls 

dipping. 

Yet when I am dust my penman may not 

know 
Those water-trampling ships v/hich made 

me glow, 



170 BIOGRAPHY 

But think my wonder mad and fail to 
find 

Their glory, even dimly, from my mind, 

And yet they made me: 

not alone the ships 

But men hard-palmed from tallying-on to 
whips, 

The two close friends of nearly twenty 
years, 

Sea-followers both, sea-wrestlers and sea- 
peers. 

Whose feet with mine wore many a bolt- 
head bright 

Treading the decks beneath the riding light. 

Yet death will make that warmth of friend- 
ship cold 

And who'll know what one said and what 
one told 

Our hearts' communion and the broken 
spells 



BIOGRAPHY 171 

When the loud call blew at the strike of 

bells? 
No one, I know, yet let me be believed 
A soul entirely known is life achieved. 

Years blank with hardship never speak a 

word 
Live in the soul to make the being stirred, 
Towns can be prisons where the spirit dulls 
Away from mates and ocean-wandering hulls, 
Away from all bright water and great hills 
And sheep-walks where the curlews cry their 

fills, 
Away in towns, where eyes have nought to 

see 
But dead museums and miles of misery 
And floating hfe unrooted from man's need 
And miles of fish-hooks baited to catch 

greed 
And hfe made wretched out of human ken 



172 BIOGBAPHT 

And miles of shopping women served by men. 
So, if the penman sums my London days 
Let him but say that there were holy ways, 
Dull Bloomsbury streets of dull brick man- 
sions old 
With stinking doors where women stood to 

scold 
And drunken waits at Christmas with their 

horn 
Droning the news, in snow, that Christ was 

born; 
And windy gas lamps and the wet roads 

shining 
And that old carol of the midnight whining, 
And that old room (above the noisy slum) 
Where there was wine and fire and talk 

with some 
Under strange pictures of the wakened soul 
To whom this earth was but a burnt-out 

coal. 



BIOGRAPHY 173 

Time, bring back those midnights and 
those friends, 

Those ghttering moments that a spirit lends 

That all may be imagined from the flash 

The cloud-hid god-game through the light- 
ning gash 

Those hours of stricken sparks from which 
men took 

Light to send out to men in song or 
book. 

Those friends who heard St. Pancras' bells 
strike two 

Yet stayed until the barber's cockerel crew. 

Talking of noble styles, the Frenchman's 
best, 

The thought beyond great poets not ex- 
pressed. 

The glory of mood where human frailty 
failed, 

The forts of human hght not yet assailed, 



174 BIOGRAPHY 

Till the dim room had mind and seemed to 

brood 
Binding our wills to mental brotherhood, 
Till we became a college, and each night 
Was discipline and manhood and dehght, 
Till our farewells and winding down the 

stairs 
At each grey dawn had meaning that Time 

spares. 
That we, so linked, should roam the whole 

world round 
Teaching the ways our brooding minds had 

found 
Making that room our Chapter, our one 

mind 
Where all that this world soiled should be 

refined. 

Often at night I tread those streets again 
And see the alley glimmering in the rain, 



BIOGRAPHY 175 

Yet now I miss that sign of earlier tramps 
A house with shadows of plane-boughs under 

lamps, 
The secret house where once a beggar stood 
Trembling and bUnd to show his woe for 

food. 
And now I miss that friend who used to 

walk 
Home to my lodgings with me, deep in 

talk, 
Wearing the last of night out in still 

streets 
Trodden by us and pohcemen on their 

beats 
And cats, but else deserted ; now I miss 
That Uvely mind and guttural laugh of his 
And that strange way he had of making 

gleam, 
Like something real, the art we used to 
dream. 



176 BIOGRAPHY 

London has been my prison ; but my books 
Hills and great waters, labouring men and 

brooks, 
Ships and deep friendships and remembered 

days 
Which even now set all my mind ablaze 
As that June day when, in the red bricks' 

chinks 
I saw the old Roman ruins white with 

pinks 
And felt the hillside haunted even then 
By not dead memory of the Roman men. 
And felt the hillside thronged by souls un- 
seen 
Who knew the interest in me and were keen 
That man alive should understand man 

dead 
So many centuries since the blood was shed. 
And quickened with strange hush because 

this comer 



BIOGRAPHY 177 

Sensed a strange soul alive behind the 

summer. 
That other day on Ercall When the stones 
Were sunbleached white, hke long unburied 

bones, 
While the bees droned and all the air was 

sweet 
From honey buried underneath my feet, 
Honey of purple heather and white clover 
Sealed in its gummy bags till summer's 

over. 
Then other days by water, by bright sea. 
Clear as clean glass and my bright friend 

with me, 
The cove clean bottomed where we saw the 

brown 
Red spotted plaice go skimming six feet 

down 
And saw the long fronds waving, white 

with shells, 



178 BIOGEAPHY 

Waving, unfolding, drooping, to the swells ; 
That sadder day when we beheld the great 
And terrible beauty of a Lammas spate 
Roaring white-mouthed in all the great 

cliff's gaps 
Headlong, tree-tumbling fury of collapse, 
While drenching clouds drove by and every 

sense 
Was water roaring or rushing or in offence. 
And mountain sheep stood huddled and 

blown gaps gleamed 
Where torn white hair of torrents shook 

and streamed. 
That sadder day when we beheld again 
A spate going down in sunshine after rain, 
When the blue reach of water leaping 

bright 
Was one long ripple, and clatter, flecked 

with white. 
And that far day, that never blotted page 



BIOGRAPHY l'^9 

When youth was bright Uke flowers about 

old age 
Fair generations bringing thanks for Hfe 
To that old kindly man and trembling wife 
After their sixty years: Time never made 
A better beauty since the Earth was laid 
Than that thanksgiving given to grey hair 
For the great gift of Hfe which brought 
them there. 

Days of endeavour have been good: the 

days 
Racing in cutters for the comrade's praise, 
The day they led my cutter at the turn 
Yet could not keep the lead and dropped 

astern, 
The moment in the spurt when both boats' 

oars 
Dipped in each other's wash and throats 

grew hoarse 



180 BIOGRAPHY 

And teeth ground into teeth and both 
strokes quickened 

Lashing the sea, and gasps came, and hearts 
sickened 

And coxswains damned us, dancing, banking 
stroke, 

To put our weights on, though our hearts 
were broke 

And both boats seemed to stick and sea 
seemed glue. 

The tide a mill race we were struggling 
through 

And every quick recover gave us squints 

Of them still there, and oar tossed water- 
glints 

And cheering came, our friends, our foemen 
cheering, 

A long, wild, rallying murmur on the hear- 
ing— 

'Tort Fore!" and ''Starboard Fore!" 
"Port Fore." "Port Fore." 



BIOGRAPHY 181 

''Up with her, Starboard," and at that each 

oar 
Lightened, though arms were bursting, and 

eyes shut 
And the oak stretchers grunted in the strut 
And the curse quickened from the cox, our 

bows 
Crashed, and drove talking water, we made 

vows 
Chastity vows and temperance ; in our pain 
We numbered things we'd never eat again 
If we could only win ; then came the yell 
''Starboard," "Port Fore," and then a 

beaten bell 
Rung as for fire to cheer us. "Now." 

Oars bent 
Soul took the looms now body's bolt was 

spent, 
"Damn it, come on now," "On now," 

"On now," "Starboard." 



182 BIOGRAPHY 

'Tort Fore." ''Up with her, Port"; each 

cutter harboured 
Ten eye-shut painsick strugglers, "Heave, 

oh, heave," 
Catcalls waked echoes like a shrieking 

sheave. 
*' Heave," and I saw a back, then two. 

"Port Fore." 
"Starboard." "Come on." I saw the mid- 
ship oar 
And knew we had done them. "Port Fore." 
"Starboard." "Now." 
I saw bright water spurting at their bow 
Their cox' full face an instant. They were 

done. 
The watchers' cheering almost drowned the 

gun. 
We had hardly strength to toss our oars; 

our cry 
Cheering the losing cutter was a sigh. 



BIOGRAPHY 183 

Other bright days of action have seemed 

great : 
Wild days in a pampero off the Plate; 
Good swimming days, at Hog Back or the 

Coves 
Which the young gannet and the corbie 

loves ; 
Surf-swimming between rollers, catching 

breath 
Between the advancing grave and breaking 

death. 
Then shooting up into the sunbright smooth 
To watch the advancing roller bare her tooth, 
And days of labour also, loading, hauling ; 
Long days at winch or capstan, heaving, 

pawling ; 
The days with oxen, dragging stone from 

blasting. 
And dusty days in mills, and hot days 

masting. 



184 BIOGRAPHY 

Trucking on dust-dry deckings smooth like 

ice, 
And hunts in mighty wool-racks after mice ; 
Mornings with buckwheat when the fields 

did blanch 
With White Leghorns come from the chicken 

ranch. 
Days near the spring upon the sunburnt hill, 
Plying the maul or gripping tight the drill. 
Delights of work most real, delights that 

change 
The headache life of towns to rapture 

strange 
Not known by townsmen, nor imagined; 

health 
That puts new glory upon mental wealth 
And makes the poor man rich. 

But that ends, too. 
Health with its thoughts of life; and that 

bright view 



BIOGRAPHY 185 

That sunny landscape from life's peak, that 

glory, 
And all a glad man's comments on life's 

story 
And thoughts of marvellous towns and liv- 
ing men ' 
And what pens tell and all beyond the pen 
End, and are summed in words so truly 

dead 
They raise no image of the heart and head. 
The life, the man alive, the friend we knew, 
The mind ours argued with or listened to. 
None ; but are dead, and all life's keenness, 

all. 
Is dead as print before the funeral, 
Even deader after, when the dates are 

sought. 
And cold minds disagree with what we 

thought. 
This many pictured world of many passions 



186 BIOGRAPHY 

Wears out the nations as a woman fashions, 
And what hfe is is much to very few, 
Men being so strange, so mad, and what 

men do 
So good to watch or share; but when men 

count 
Those hours of hfe that were a bursting 

fount, 
Sparkhng the dusty heart with Hving 

springs. 
There seems a world, beyond our earthly 

things, 
Gated by golden moments, each bright 

time 
Opening to show the city white like lime, 
High towered and many peopled. This 

made sure. 
Work that obscures those moments seems 

impure, 
Making our not-returning time of breath 



BIOGRAPHY 187 

Dull with the ritual and records of death, 
That frost of fact by which our wisdom 

gives 
Correctly stated death to all that lives. 

Best trust the happy moments. What they 

gave 
Makes man less fearful of the certain grave, 
And gives his work compassion and new 

eyes. 
The days that make us happy make us wise. 



SHIPS 

I CANNOT tell their wonder nor make known 
Magic that once thrilled through me to the 

bone, 
But all men praise some beauty, tell some 

tale, 
Vent a high mood which makes the rest 

seem pale, 
Pour their heart's blood to flourish one 

green leaf, 
Follow some Helen for her gift of grief. 
And fail in what they mean, whate'er they 

do: 
You should have seen, man cannot tell to 

you 
The beauty of the ships of that my city. 

188 



SHIPS 189 

That beauty now is spoiled by the sea's pity ; 
For one may haunt the pier a score of 

times, 
Hearing St. Nicholas bells ring out the 

chimes, 
Yet never see those proud ones . swaying 

home 
With mainyards backed and bows a cream 

of foam, 
Those bows so lovely-curving, cut so fine, 
Those coulters of the many-bubbled brine, 
As once, long since, when all the docks were 

filled 
With that sea-beauty man has ceased to 

build. 

Yet, though their splendour may have 

ceased to be, 
Each played her sovereign part in making 

me; 



190 SHIPS 

Now I return my thanks with heart and 

lips 
For the great queenhness of all those ships. 

And first the first bright memory, still so 

clear, 
An autumn evening in a golden year, 
When in the last lit moments before dark 
The Chepica, a steel-grey lovely barque, 
Came to an anchor near us on the flood, 
Her trucks aloft in sun-glow red as blood. 

Then come so many ships that I could 
fill 

Three docks with their fair hulls remem- 
bered still, 

Each with her special memory's special 
grace. 

Riding the sea, making the waves give 
place 



SHIPS 191 

To delicate high beauty; man's best 

strength, 
Noble in every line in all their length. 
Ailsa, Genista, ships, with long jibbooms, 
The Wanderer with great beauty and strange 

dooms, 
Liverpool (mightiest then) superb, sublime, 
The California huge, as slow as time. 
The Copley swift, the perfect /. T. North, 
The loveliest barque my city has sent forth, 
Dainty John Lockett well remembered yet. 
The splendid Argus with her skysail set. 
Stalwart Drumdiff, white-blocked, majestic 

Sierras, 
Divine bright ships, the water's standard- 
bearers ; 
Melpomene, Euphrosyne, and their sweet 
Sea-troubling sisters of the Fernie fleet ; 
Corunna (in whom my friend died) and the 
old 



192 SHIPS 

Long since loved Esmeralda long since 

sold. 
Centurion passed in Rio, Glaucus spoken, 
Aladdin burnt, the Bidston water-broken, 
Yola, in whom my friend sailed, Dawpool 

trim, 
Fierce-bowed Egeria plunging to the swim, 
Stanmore wide-sterned, sweet Cupica, tall 

Bard, 
Queen in all harbours with her moon sail 

yard. 

Though I tell many, there must still be 
others, 

McVickar Marshall's ships and Fernie 
Brothers', 

Lochs, Counties, Shires, Drums, the count- 
less lines 

Whose house-flags all were once familiar 
signs 



SHIPS 193 

At high main-trucks on Mersey's windy- 
ways 

When sunHght made the wind- white water 
blaze. 

Their names bring back old mornings, when 
the docks 

Shone with their house-flags and their 
painted blocks, 

Their raking masts below the Custom 
House 

And all the marvellous beauty of their 
bows. 

Familiar steamers, too, majestic steamers. 
Shearing Atlantic roller-tops to streamers, 
JJmhria, Etruria, noble, still at sea, 
The grandest, then, that man had brought 

to be. 
Majestic, City of Paris, City of Rome, 
Forever jealous racers, out and home. 



194 SHIPS 

The Alfred Holt's blue smoke-stacks down 

the stream, 
The fair Loanda with her bows a-cream. 
Booth Hners, Anchor liners, Red Star liners, 
The marks and styles of countless ship- 
designers. 
The Magdalena, Puno, Potosi, 
Lost Cotopaxi, all well known to me. 

These splendid ships, each with her grace, 

her glory. 
Her memory of old song or comrade's story, 
Still in my mind the image of life's need. 
Beauty in hardest action, beauty indeed. 
''They built great ships and sailed them" 

sounds most brave 
Whatever arts we have or fail to have; 
I touch my country's mind, I come to grips 
With half her purpose, thinking of these 

ships 



SHIPS 1 95 

That art untouched by softness, all that 

line 
Drawn ringing hard to stand the test of 

brine, 
That nobleness and grandeur, all that 

beauty 
Born of a manly life and bitter duty, 
That splendour of fine bows which yet 

could stand 
The shock of rollers never checked by land. 
That art of masts, sail crowded, fit to break. 
Yet stayed to strength and backstayed 

into rake. 
The life demanded by that art, the keen 
Eye-puckered, hard-case seamen, silent, 

lean, — 
They are grander things than all the art of 

towns. 
Their tests are tempests and the sea that 

drowns, 



196 SHIPS 

They are my country's line, her great art 

done 
By strong brains labouring on the thought 

unwon, 
They mark our passage as a race of men, 
Earth will not see such ships as those again. 



TRUTH 

Man with his burning soul 
Has but an hour of breath 
To build a ship of Truth 
In which his soul may sail, 
Sail on the sea of death. 
For death takes toll 
Of beauty, courage, youth, 
Of all but Truth. 

Life's city ways are dark. 
Men mutter by; the wells 
Of the great waters moan. 
O death, O sea, tide. 
The waters moan Uke bells. 
No Ught, no mark. 
The soul goes out alone 
On seas unknown. 

197 



198 TRUTH 

Stripped of all purple robes, 

Stripped of all golden lies, 

I will not be afraid. 

Truth will preserve through death; 

Perhaps the stars will rise, 

The stars like globes. 

The ship my striving made 

May see night fade. 



THEY CLOSED HER EYES 

FROM THE SPANISH OF DON GUSTAVO 
A. BECQUER. 

They closed her eyes, 
They were still open; 
They hid her face 
With a white linen, 
And, some sobbing. 
Others in silence, 
From the sad bedroom 
All came away. 

The night-light in a dish 
Burned on the floor, 
It flung on the wall 
The bed's shadow, 

199 



200 THEY CLOSED HER EYES 

And in that shadow 
One saw sometimes 
Drawn in sharp Une 
The body's shape. 

The day awakened 
At its first whiteness 
With its thousand noises; 
The town awoke 
Before that contrast 
Of fife and strangeness, 
Of fight and darkness. 
I thought a moment 

My God, how lonely 

The dead are! 

From the house, shoulder-high 
To church they bore her, 
And in a chapel 
Thev left her bier. 



THEY CLOSED HER EYES 201 

There they surrounded 
Her pale body 
With yellow candles 
And black stuffs. 

At the last stroke 

Of the ringing for the souls 

An old crone finished 

Her last prayers. 

She crossed the narrow nave; 

The doors moaned, 

And the holy place 

Remained deserted. 

From a clock one heard 
The measured ticking, 
And from some candles 
The guttering. 
All things there 
Were so grim and sad. 



202 THEY CLOSED II EB EYES 

So dark and rigid, 

That I thought a moment, 

My God, how lonely 

The dead are! 

From the high belfry 
The tongue of iron 
Clanged, giving out 
His sad farewell. 
Crape on their clothes, 
Her friends and kindred 
Passed in a row, 
Making procession. 

In the last vault, 

Dark and narrow. 

The pickaxe opened 

A niche at one end; 

There they laid her down. 

Soon they bricked the place up. 



THEY CLOSED HER EYES 203 

And with a gesture 
Bade grief farewell. 

Pickaxe on shoulder 
The grave-digger, 
Singing between his teeth, 
Passed out of sight. 
The night came down; 
It was all silent, 
Lost in the shadows 
I thought a moment. 

My God, how lonely 

The dead are! 

In the long nights 
Of bitter winter. 
When the wind makes 
The rafters creak, 
When the violent rain 
Lashes the windows. 
Lonely, I remember 
That poor girl. 



204 THEY CLOSED HER EYES 

There falls the rain 
With its noise eternal. 
There the north wind 
Fights with the rain. 
Stretched in the hollow 
Of the damp bricks 
Perhaps her bones 
Freeze with the cold. 

Does the dust return to dust? 

Does the soul fly to heaven? 

Is all vile matter, 

Rottenness, filthiness? 

I know not. But 

There is something — something 

That I cannot explain, 

Something that gives us 

Loathing, terror, 

To leave the dead 

So alone, so wretched. 



THE HARP 

FROM THE SPANISH OF DON GUSTAVO 
A. BECQUER 

In a dark corner of the room, 
Perhaps forgotten by its owner, 
Silent and dim with dust, 
I saw the harp. 

How many musics slumbered in its strings, 
As the bird sleeps in the branches, 
Waiting the snowy hand 
That could awaken them. 

Ah me, I thought, how many, many times 
Genius thus slumbers in a human soul, 
Waiting, as Lazarus waited, for a voice 
To bid him "Rise and walk." 

205 



SONNET 

FROM THE SPANISH OF DON FRANCISCO DE 
QUEVEDO 

I SAW the ramparts of my native land, 
One time so strong, now dropping in decay, 
Their strength destroyed by this new age's 

way 
That has worn out and rotted what was 

grand. 
I went into the fields: there I could see 
The sun drink up the waters newly thawed, 
And on the hills the moaning cattle pawed ; 
Their miseries robbed the day of light for 

me. 

I went into my house : I saw how spotted. 
Decaying things made that old home their 
prize. 

206 



SONNET 207 

My withered walking-staff had come to 

bend; 
I felt the age had won; my sword was 

rotted, 
And there was nothing on which I set my 

eyes 
That was not a reminder of the end. 



SONNET ON THE DEATH OF HIS 
WIFE 

FROM THE PORTUGUESE OF ANTONIO DE 
FERREIRO 

That blessed sunlight that once showed to 

me 
My way to heaven more plain more cer- 
tainly, 
And with her bright beam banished utterly 
All trace of mortal sorrow far from me, 
Has gone from me, has left her prison sad, 
And I am blind and alone and gone astray, 
Like a lost pilgrim in a desert way 
Wanting the blessed guide that once he had. 

Thus with a spirit bowed and mind a blur 
I trace the holy steps where she has gone, 

208 



SONNET ON THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE 209 

By valleys and by meadows and by moun- 
tains, 

And everywhere I catch a glimpse of her. 

She takes me by the hand and leads me on, 

And my eyes follow her, my ej'^es made 
fountains. 



SONG 

One sunny time in May 
When lambs were sporting, 
The sap ran in the spray 
And I went courting, 
And all the apple boughs 
Were bright with blossom, 
I picked an early rose 
For my love's bosom. 

And then I met her friend, 
Down by the water, 
WTio cried ''She's met her end, 
That gray-eyed daughter; 
That voice of hers is stilled 
Her beauty broken." 
O me, my love is killed, 
My love unspoken. 

210 



SONG 211 

She was too sweet, too dear, 

To die so cruel, 

Death, why leave me here 

And take my jewel? 

Her voice went to the bone, 

So true, so ringing. 

And now I go alone, 

Winter or springing. 



THE BALLAD OF SIR BORS 

Would I could win some quiet and rest, and 
a little ease, 

In the cool grey hush of the dusk, in the 
dim green place of the trees, 

Where the birds are singing, singing, sing- 
ing, crying aloud 

The song of the red, red rose that blossoms 
beyond the seas. 

Would I could see it, the rose, when the 
light begins to fail. 

And a lone white star in the West is glim- 
mering on the mail ; 

The red, red passionate rose of the sacred 
blood of the Christ, 

In the shining chalice of God, the cup of 
the Holy Grail. 

212 



THE BALLAD OF SIR BOBS 213 

The dusk comes gathering grey, and the 

darkness dims the West, 
The oxen low to the byre, and all bells ring 

to rest; 
But I ride over the moors, for the dusk still 

bides and waits. 
That brims my soul with the glow of the 

rose that ends the Quest. 

My horse is spavined and ribbed, and his 

bones come through his hide, 
My sword is rotten with rust, but I shake 

the reins and ride. 
For the bright white birds of God that nest 

in the rose have called, 
And never a township now is a town where 

I can bide. 

It will happen at last, at dusk, as my horse 
Umps down the fell. 



214 THE BALLAD OF SIB BOBS 

A star will glow like a note God strikes on a 

silver bell, 
And the bright white birds of God will 

carry my soul to Christ, 
And the sight of the Rose, the Rose, will 

pay for the years of hell. 



SPANISH WATERS 

Spanish waters, Spanish waters, you are 
ringing in my ears, 

Like a slow sweet piece of music from the 
grey forgotten years; 

Telling tales, and beating tunes, and bring- 
ing weary thoughts to me 

Of the sandy beach at Muertos, where I 
would that I could be. 

There's a surf breaks on Los Muertos, and 

it never stops to roar, 
And it's there we came to anchor, and it's 

there we went ashore. 
Where the blue lagoon is silent amid snags 

of rotting trees, 
Dropping like the clothes of corpses cast up 

by the seas. 

215 



216 SPANISH WATERS 

We anchored at Los Muertos when the dip- 
ping sun was red, 

We left her half-a-mile to sea, to west of 
Nigger Head ; 

And before the mist was on the Cay, before 
the day was done, 

We were all ashore on Muertos with the 
gold that we had won. 

We bore it through the marshes in a half- 
score battered chests, 

Sinking, in the sucking quagmires, to the 
sunburn on our breasts, 

Heaving over tree-trunks, gasping, damning 
at the flies and heat. 

Longing for a long drink, out of silver, in 
the ship's cool lazareet. 

The moon came white and ghostly as we 
laid the treasure down. 



SPANISH WATERS 217 

There was gear there'd make a beggarman 

as rich as Lima Town, 
Copper charms and silver trinkets from the 

chests of Spanish crews, 
Gold doubloons and double moydores, louis 

d'ors and portagues, 

Clumsy yellow-metal earrings from the 

Indians of Brazil, 
Uncut emeralds out of Rio, bezoar stones 

from Guayaquil; 
Silver, in the crude and fashioned, pots of 

old Arica bronze. 
Jewels from the bones of Incas desecrated 

by the Dons. 

We smoothed the place with mattocks, and 
we took and blazed the tree, 

Which marks yon where the gear is hid that 
none will ever see, 



218 SPANISH WATERS 

And we laid aboard the ship again, and 

south away we steers, 
Through the loud surf of Los Muertos 

which is beating in my ears. 

I'm the last alive that knows it. All the 

rest have gone their waj^s 
Killed, or died, or come to anchor in the old 

Mulatas Cays, 
And I go singing, fiddling, old and starved 

and in despair, 
And I know where all that gold is hid, if I 

were only there. 

It's not the way to end it all. I'm old, 

and nearly blind, 
And an old man's past's a strange thing, 

for it never leaves his mind. 
And I see in dreams, awhiles, the beach, 

the sun's disc dipping red, 



SPANISH WATERS 219 

And the tall ship, under topsails, swaying 
in past Nigger Head. 

I'd be glad to step ashore there. Glad to 

take a pick and go 
To the lone blazed coco-palm tree in the 

place no others know, 
And lift the gold and silver that has 

mouldered there for years 
By the loud surf of Los Muertos which is 

beating in my ears. 



CARGOES 

QuiNQUiKEME of Ninevch from distant 

Ophir, 
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, 

With a cargo of ivory, 

And apes and peacocks, 

Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white 

wine. 

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the 
Isthmus, 

Dipping through the Tropics by the palm- 
green shores. 

With a cargo of diamonds, 

Emeralds, amethysts. 

Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores. 

220 



CARGOES 221 

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked 

smoke stack, 
Butting through the Channel in the mad 

March days, 
With a cargo of Tyne coal, 
Road-rails, pig-lead. 
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays. 



CAPTAIN STRATTON'S FANCY 

Oh some are fond of red wine, and some are 

fond of white, 
And some are all for dancing by the pale 

moonlight ; 
But rum alone's the tipple, and the heart's 

delight 
Of the old bold mate of Henry Morgan. 

Oh some are fond of Spanish wine, and 

some are fond of French, 
And some'U swallow tay and stuff fit only 

for a wench ; 
But I'm for right Jamaica till I roll beneath 

the bench, 
Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan. 

222 



CAPTAIN STRATTON'S FANCY 223 

Oh some are for the lily, and some are for 

the rose, 
But I am for the sugar-cane that in Jamaica 

grows ; 
For it's that that makes the bonny drink to 

warm my copper nose. 
Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan. 

Oh some are fond of fiddles, and a song 

well sung, 
And some are all for music for to lilt upon 

the tongue; 
But mouths were made for tankards, and 

for sucking at the bung. 
Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan. 

Oh some are fond of dancing, and some are 

fond of dice, 
And some are all for red lips, and pretty 

lasses' eyes; 



224 CAPTAIN stratton's fancy 

But a right Jamaica puncheon is a finer 
prize 
To the old bold mate of Henry Morgan. 

Oh some that's good and godly ones they 

hold that it's a sin 
To troll the jolly bowl around, and let the 

dollars spin; 
But I'm for toleration and for drinking at 

an inn, 
Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan. 

Oh some are sad and wretched folk that go 

in silken suits, 
And there's a mort of wicked rogues that 

live in good reputes; 
So I'm for drinking honestly, and dying in 

my boots. 
Like an old bold mate of Henry Morgan. 



AN OLD SONG RE-SUNG 

I SAW a ship a-sailing, a-sailing, a-sailing, 
With emeralds and rubies and sapphires in 

her hold; 
And a bosun in a blue coat bawling at the 

railing, 
Piping through a silver call that had a chain 

of gold ; 
The summer wind was failing and the tall 

ship rolled. 

I saw a ship a~steering, a-steering, 

a-steering, 
With roses in red thread worked upon her 

sails ; 
With sacks of purple amethysts, the spoils 

of buccaneering, 

225 



226 AN OLD SONG RE- SUNG 

Skins of musky yellow wine, and silks in 

bales, 
Her merry men were cheering, hauling on 

the brails. 

I saw a ship a-sinking, a-sinking, a-sinking. 
With glittering sea-water splashing on her 

decks, 
With seamen in her spirit-room singing 

songs and drinking, 
Pulling claret bottles down, and knocking 

off the necks. 
The broken glass was chinking as she sank 

among the wrecks. 



ST. MARY'S BELLS 

It's pleasant in Holy Mary 

By San Marie lagoon, 

The bells they chime and jingle 

From dawn to afternoon. 

They rhyme and chime and mingle, 

They pulse and boom and beat. 

And the laughing bells are gentle 

And the mournful bells are sweet. 

Oh, who are the men that ring them. 
The bells of San Marie, 
Oh, who but sonsie seamen 
Come in from over sea. 
And merrily in the belfries 
They rock and sway and hale, 
And send the bells a-j angle, 
And down the lusty ale. 

227 



228 ST. MARY'S BELLS 

It's pleasant in Holy Mary 

To hear the beaten bells 

Come booming into music, 

Which throbs, and clangs, and swells, 

From sunset till the daybreak. 

From dawn to afternoon. 

In port of Holy Mary 

On San Marie lagoon. 



LONDON TOWN 

Oh London Town's a fine town, and Lon- 
don sights are rare, 

And London ale is right ale, and brisk's the 
London air, 

And busily goes the world there, but crafty 
grows the mind. 

And London Town of all towns I'm glad to 
leave behind. 

Then hey for croft and hop-yard, and hill, 

and field, and pond, 
With Breden Hill before me and Malvern 

Hill beyond. 
The hawthorn white i' the hedgerow, and 

all the spring's attire 
In the comely land of Teme and Lugg, and 

Clent, and Clee, and Wyre. 

229 



230 LONDON TOWN 

Oh London girls are brave girls, in silk and 

cloth o' gold, 
And London shops are rare shops, where 

gallant things are sold. 
And bonnily clinks the gold there, but 

drowsily blinks the eye, 
And London Town of all towns I'm glad to 

hurry by. 

Then, hey for covert and woodland, and 

ash and elm and oak, 
Tewkesbury inns, and Malvern roofs, and 

Worcester chimney smoke, 
The apple trees in the orchard, the cattle in 

the byre, 
And all the land from Ludlow town to 

Bredon church's spire. 

Oh London tunes are new tunes, and Lon- 
don books are wise. 



LONDON TOWN 231 

And London plays are rare plays, and fine 

to country eyes, 
But craftily fares the knave there, and 

wickedly fares the Jew, 
And London Town of all towns I'm glad to 

hurry through. 

So hey for the road, the west road, by mill 

and forge and fold. 
Scent of the fern and song of the lark by 

brook, and field, and wold. 
To the comely folk at the hearth-stone and 

the talk beside the fire, 
In the hearty land, where I was bred, my 

land of heart's desire. 



THE EMIGRANT 

Going by Daly's shanty I heard the boys 

within 
Dancing the Spanish hornpipe to Driscoll's 

viohn, 
I heard the sea-boots shaking the rough 

planks of the floor, 
But I was going westward, I hadn't heart 

for more. 

All down the windy village the noise rang 

in my ears, 
Old sea boots stamping, shuffling, it brought 

the bitter tears. 
The old tune piped and quavered, the lilts 

came clear and strong, 
But I was going westward, I couldn't join 

the song. 

232 



THE EMIGRANT 233 

There were the grey stone houses, the night 

wind blowing keen, 
The hill-sides pale with moonlight, the 

young corn springing green. 
The hearth nooks lit and kindly, with dear 

friends good to see. 
But I was going westward, and the ship 

waited me. 



PORT OF HOLY PETER 

The blue laguna rocks and quivers, 

Dull gurgling eddies twist and spin, 
The climate does for people's livers, 
It's a nasty place to anchor in 
Is Spanish port, 
Fever port, 
Port of Holy Peter. 

The town begins on the sea-beaches. 
And the town's mad with the stinging 
flies. 
The drinking water's mostly leeches, 
It's a far remove from Paradise 
Is Spanish port. 
Fever port, 
Port of Holy Peter. 

234 



PORT OF HOLY PETER 235 

There's sand-bagging and throat-slitting, 

And quiet graves in the sea shme, 
Stabbing, of course, and rum-hitting, 
Dirt, and drink, and stink, and crime, 
In Spanish port, 
Fever port. 
Port of Holy Peter. 

All the day the wind's blowing 

From the sick swamp below the hills. 
All the night the plague's growing, 
And the dawn brings the fever chills. 
In Spanish port, 
Fever port. 
Port of Holy Peter. 

You get a thirst there's no slaking, 
You get the chills and fever-shakes, 

Tongue yellow and head aching, 

And then the sleep that never wakes. 



236 PORT OF HOLT PETER 

And all the year the heat's baking, 
The sea rots and the earth quakes, 
In Spanish port, 
Fever port, 
Port of Holy Peter. 



BEAUTY 

I KATE seen dawn and sunset on moors and 

windy hills 
Coming in solemn beauty like slow old 

tunes of Spain: 
I have seen the lady April bringing the 

daffodils, 
Bringing the springing grass and the soft 

warm April rain. 

I have heard the song of the blossoms and 

the old chant of the sea, 
And seen strange lands from under the 

arched white sails of ships ; 
But the loveliest things of beauty God ever 

has showed to me, 
Are her voice, and her hair, and eyes, and 

the dear red curve of her lips. 

237 



THE SEEKERS 

Friends and loves we have none, nor 

wealth nor blessed abode, 
But the hope of the City of God at the 

other end of the road. 

Not for us are content, and quiet, and peace 

of mind. 
For we go seeking a city that we shall never 

find. 

There is no solace on earth for us — for 

such as we — 
Who search for a hidden city that we shall 

never see. 

238 



THE SEEKERS 239 

Only the road and the dawn, the sun, the 

wind, and the rain, 
And the watch fire under stars, and sleep, 

and the road again. 

We seek the City of God, and the haunt 

where beauty dwells. 
And we find the noisy mart and the sound 

of burial bells. 

Never the golden city, where radiant people 

meet. 
But the dolorous town where mourners are 

going about the street. 

We travel the dusty road till the light of 

the day is dim. 
And sunset shows us spires away on the 

world's rim. 



240 THE SEEKERS 

We travel from dawn to dusk, till the day 

is past and by, 
Seeking the Holy City beyond the rim of 

the sky. 

Friends and loves we have none, nor wealth 

nor blest abode, 
But the hope of the City of God at the 

other end of the road. 



PRAYER 

When the last sea is sailed, when the last 

shallow's charted, 
When the last field is reaped, and the last 

harvest stored, 
When the last fire is out and the last guest 

departed, 
Grant the last prayer that I shall pray, be 

good to me, Lord. 

And let me pass in a night at sea, a night 

of storm and thunder, 
In the loud crying of the wind through sail 

and rope and spar. 
Send me a ninth great peaceful wave to 

drown and roll me under 
To the cold tunny-fish's home where the 

drowned galleons are. 

241 



242 PRAYER 

And in the dim green quiet place far out of 

sight and hearing, 
Grant I may hear at whiles the wash and 

thresh of the sea-foam 
About the fine keen bows of the stately 

clippers steering 
Towards the lone northern star and the fair 

ports of home. 



DAWN 

The dawn comes cold : the haystack smokes, 

The green twigs crackle in the fire, 
The dew is dripping from the oaks, 
And sleepy men bear milking-yokes 
Slowly towards the cattle-byre. 

Down in the town a clock strikes six, 

The grey east heaven burns and glows. 
The dew shines on the thatch of ricks, 
A slow old crone comes gathering sticks. 
The red cock in the ox-yard crows. 

Beyond the stack where we have lain 
The road runs twisted like a snake 
(The white road to the land of Spain), 
The road that we must foot again, 

Though the feet halt and the heart ache. 

243 



LAUGH AND BE MERRY 

Laugh and be merry, remember, better the 

world with a song. 
Better the world with a blow in the teeth of 

a wrong. 
Laugh, for the time is brief, a thread the 

length of a span. 
Laugh and be proud to belong to the old 

proud pageant of man. 

Laugh and be merry : remember, in olden 

time. 
God made Heaven and Earth for joy He 

took in a rhyme. 
Made them, and filled them full with the 

strong red wine of His mirth, 
The splendid joy of the stars: the joy of 

the earth. 

244 



LAUGH AND BE MERRY 245 

So we must laugh and drink from the deep 

blue cup of the sky, 
Join the jubilant song of the great stars 

sweeping by, 
Laugh, and battle, and work, and drink of the 

wine outpoured 
In the dear green earth, the sign of the joy 

of the Lord. 

Laugh and be merry together, like brothers 

akin. 
Guesting awhile in the rooms of a beautiful 

inn, 
Glad till the dancing stops, and the lilt of 

the music ends. 
Laugh till the game is played; and be you 

merry, my friends. 



JUNE TWILIGHT 

The twilight comes; the sun 

Dips down and sets, 
The boys have done 

Play at the nets. 

In a warm golden glow 
The woods are steeped. 

The shadows grow; 
Th<e bat has cheeped. 

Sweet smells the new-mown hay; 

The mowers pass 
Home, each his way, 

Through the grass. 

246 



JUNE TWILIGHT 247 

The night-wind stirs the fern, 

A night-jar spins; 
The windows burn 

In the inns. 

Dusky it grows. The moon ! 

The dews descend. 
Love, can this beauty in our hearts 

End? 



ROADWAYS 

One road leads to London, 
One road runs to Wales, 

My road leads me seawards 
To the white dipping sails. 

One road leads to the river. 
As it goes singing slow; 

My road leads to shipping. 
Where the bronzed sailors go. 

Leads me, lures me, calls me 
To salt green tossing sea; 

A road without earth's road-dust 
Is the right road for me. 

A wet road heaving, shining. 
And wild with seagulls' cries, 

248 



ROADWAYS 249 

A mad salt sea-wind blowing 
The salt spray in my eyes. 

My road calls me, lures me 
West, east, south, and north; 

Most roads lead men homewards, 
My road leads me forth 

To add more miles to the tally 

Of grey miles left behind. 
In quest of that one beauty 

God put me here to find. 



MIDSUMMER NIGHT 

The perfect disc of the sacred moon 

Through still blue heaven serenely swims, 
And the lone bird's liquid music brims 

The peace of the night with a perfect tune. 

This is that holiest night of the year 
When (the mowers say) may be heard and 

seen 
The ghostly court of the English queen, 

Who rides to harry and hunt the deer. 

And the woodland creatures cower awake, 
A strange unrest is on harts and does, 
For the maiden Dian a-hunting goes, 

And the trembling deer are afoot in the 
brake. 

250 



MIDSUMMER NIGHT 251 

They start at a shaken leaf : the sound 
Of a dry twig snapped by a squirrel's foot 
Is a nameless dread : and to them the 
hoot 

Of a mousing owl is the cry of a hound. 

Oh soon the forest will ring with cries, 
The dim green coverts will flash : the 

grass 
Will glow as the radiant hunters pass 

After the quarry with burning eyes. 

The hurrying feet will range unstayed 
Of questing goddess and hunted fawn, 
Till the east is grey with the sacred dawn, 

And the red cock wakens the milking maid. 



THE HARPER'S SONG 

This sweetness trembling from the strings 
The music of my troublous lute 
Hath timed Herodias' daughter's foot ; 
Setting a-clink her ankle-rings 
Whenas she danced to feasted kings. 

Where gemmed apparel burned and caught 
The sunset 'neath the golden dome, 
To the dark beauties of old Rome 
My sorrowful lute hath haply brought 
Sad memories sweet with tender thought. 

When night had fallen and lights and fires 
Were darkened in the homes of men, 
Some sighing echo stirred : — and then 
The old cunning wakened from the wires 
The old sorrows and the old desires. 

252 



THE habper's song 253 

Dead Kings in long forgotten lands, 
And all dead beauteous women ; some 
Whose pride imperial hath become 
Old armour rusting in the sands 
And shards of iron in dusty hands, 

Have heard my lyre's soft rise and fall 
Go trembling down the paven ways, 
Till every heart was all ablaze — 

Hasty each foot — to obey the call 

To triumph or to funeral. 

Could I begin again the slow 

Sweet mournful music filled with tears, 
Surely the old, dead, dusty ears 

Would hear; the old drowsy eyes would 
glow, 

Old memories come ; old hopes and fears, 

And time restore the long ago. 



THE GENTLE LADY 

So beautiful, so dainty-sweet, 

So like a lyre's delightful touch — 

A beauty perfect, ripe, complete 

That art's own hand could only smutch 

And nature's self not better much. 

So beautiful, so purely wrought, 
Like a fair missal penned with hymns, 
So gentle, so surpassing thought — 
A beauteous soul in lovely limbs, 
A lantern that an angel trims. 

So simple-sweet, without a sin, 
Like gentle music gently timed, 
Like rhyme-words coming aptly in. 
To round a mooned poem rhymed 
To tunes the laughing bells have chimed. 

254 



THE DEAD KNIGHT 

The cleanly rush of the mountain ah*, 
And the mumbling, grumbling humble-bees, 
Are the only things that wander there. 
The pitiful bones are laid at ease. 
The grass has grown in his tangled hair, 
And a rambling bramble binds his knees. 

To shrieve his soul from the pangs of hell, 
The only requiem bells that rang 
Were the harebell and the heather bell. 
Hushed he is with the holy spell 
In the gentle hymn the wind sang, 
And he lies quiet, and sleeps well. 
He is bleached and blanched with the sum- 
mer sun; 
The misty rain and the cold dew 

255 



256 THE DEAD KNIGHT 

Have altered him from the kingly one 
Whom his lady loved, and his men knew, 
And dwindled him to a skeleton. 

The vetches have twined about his bones, 

The straggling ivy twists and creeps 

In his eye-sockets : the nettle keeps 

Vigil about him while he sleeps. 

Over his body the wind moans 

With a dreary tune throughout the day, 

In a chorus wistful, eerie, thin 

As the gulls' cry, as the cry in the bay, 

The mournful word the seas say 

When tides are wandering out or in. 



SORROW OF MYDATH 

Weary the cry of the wind is, weary the 

sea, 
Weary the heart and the mind and the 

body of me, 
Would I were out of it, done with it, would 

I could be 
A white gull crying along the desolate 

sands. 

Outcast, derehct soul in a body accurst, 
Standing drenched with the spindrift, stand- 
ing athirst. 
For the cool green waves of death to arise 
and burst 
In a tide of quiet for me on the desolate 
sands. 

257 



258 SORROW OF MYDATH 

Would that the waves and the long white 

hair of the spray- 
Would gather in splendid terror, and blot 

me away 
To the sunless place of the wrecks where 

the waters sway 
Gently, dreamily, quietly over desolate 

sands. 



TWILIGHT 

Twilight it is, and the far woods are dim, 

and the rooks cry and call. 
Down in the valley the lamps, and the mist, 

and a star over all, 
There by the rick, where they thresh, is the 

drone at an end, 
Twilight it is, and I travel the road with 

my friend. 

I think of the friends who are dead, who 

were dear long ago in the past, 
Beautiful friends who are dead, though I 

know that death cannot last ; 
Friends with the beautiful eyes that the dust 

has defiled, 
Beautiful souls who were gentle when I was 

a child. 

259 



INVOCATION 

O WANDEKER iiito many brains, 
spark the emperor's purple hides, 
You sow the dusk with fiery grains 
When the gold horseman rides. 
beauty on the darkness hurled. 
Be it through me you shame the world. 



260 



POSTED AS MISSING 

Under all her topsails she trembled Uke a 

stag, 
The wind made a ripple in her bonny red 

flag; 
They cheered her from the shore and they 

cheered her from the pier, 
And under all her topsails she trembled like 

a deer. 

So she passed swaying, where the green 

seas run, 
Her wind-steadied topsails were stately in 

the sun; 
There was glitter on the water from her 

red port light, 

So she passed swaying, till she was out 

of sight. 

261 



262 POSTED AS MISSIN-G 

Long and long ago it was, a weary time 
it is, 

The bones of her sailor-men are coral plants 
by this; 

Coral plants, and shark-weed, and a mer- 
maid's comb. 

And if the fishers net them they never 
bring them home. 

It's rough on sailors' women. They have 
to mangle hard, 

And stitch at dungarees till their finger- 
ends are scarred, 

Thinking of the sailor-men who sang among 
the crowd. 

Hoisting of her topsails when she sailed so 
proud. 



A CREED 

I HOLD that when a person dies 
His soul returns again to earth; 

Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise 
Another mother gives him birth. 

With sturdier Hmbs and brighter brain 

The old soul takes the roads again. 

Such is my own belief and trust; 

This hand, this hand that holds the pen, 
Has many a hundred times been dust 

And turned, as dust, to dust again; 
These eyes of mine have blinked and shone 
In Thebes, in Troy, in Babylon. 

All that I rightly think or do, 

Or make, or spoil, or bless, or blast, 

263 



264 A CREED 

Is curse or blessing justly due 

For sloth or effort in the past. 
My life's a statement of the sum 
Of vice indulged, or overcome. 

I know that in my lives to be 

My sorry heart will ache and burn, 

And worship, unavailingly, 

The woman whom I used to spurn, 

And shake to see another have 

The love I spurned, the love she gave. 

And I shall know, in angry words. 
In gibes, and mocks, and many a tear, 

A carrion flock of homing-birds, 

The gibes and scorns I uttered here. 

The brave word that I failed to speak 

Will brand me dastard on the cheek. 

And as I wander on the roads 

I shall be helped and healed and blessed; 



A CREED 265 

Dear words shall cheer and be as goads 

To urge to heights before unguessed. 
My road shall be the road I made; 
All that I gave shall be repaid. 

So shall I fight, so shall I tread, 
In this long war beneath the stars; 

So shall a glory wreathe my head. 
So shall I faint and show the scars, 

Until this case, this clogging mould, 

Be smithied all to kingly gold. 



WHEN BONY DEATH 

When bony Death has chilled her gentle 
blood, 
And dimmed the brightness of her wistful 
eyes, 
And changed her glorious beauty into mud 
By his old skill in hateful wizardries; 

When an old lichened marble strives to tell 

How sweet a grace, how red a lip was 

hers; 

When rheumy grey-beards say, ''I knew her 

well," 

Showing the grave to curious worshippers ; 

When all the roses that she sowed in me 
Have dripped their crimson petals and 
decayed, 

266 



WHEN BONY DEATH 267 

Leaving no greenery on any tree 

That her dear hands in my heart's garden 
laid, 

Then grant, old Time, to my green moulder- 
ing skull, 

These songs may keep her memory beauti- 
ful. 



THE WEST WIND 

It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of 

birds' cries; 
I never hear the west wind bu,t tears are in 

my eyes. 
For it comes from the west lands, the old 

brown hills. 
And April's in the west wind, and daffodils. 

It's a fine land, the west land, for hearts as 

tired as mine, 
Apple orchards blossom there, and the air's 

like wine. 
There is cool green grass there, where men 

may lie at rest. 

And the thrushes are in song there, fluting 

from the nest. 

268 



THE WEST WIND 269 

"Will you not come home, brother? You 

have been long away. 
It's April, and blossom time, and white is 

the spray: 
And bright is the sun, brother, and warm is 

the rain. 
Will you not come home, brother, home to 

us again? 

The young corn is green, brother, where the 

rabbits run; 
It's blue sky, and white clouds, and warm 

rain and sun. 
It's song to a man's soul, brother, fire to a 

man's brain, 
To hear the wild bees and see the merry 

spring again. 

Larks are singing in the west, brother, 
above the green wheat. 



270 THE WEST WIND 

So will you not come home, brother, and 

rest your tired feet? 
I've a balm for bruised hearts, brother, sleep 

for aching eyes," 
Says the warm wind, the west wind, full of 

birds' cries. 

It's the white road westwards is the road I 

must tread 
To the green grass, the cool grass, and rest 

for heart and head, 
To the violets and the brown brooks and 

the thrushes' song 
In the fine land, the west land, the land 

where I belong. 



HER HEART 

Her heart is always doing lovely things, 
Fining my wintry mind with simple 
flowers ; 

Playing sweet tunes on my untuned strings, 
Delighting all my undelightful hours. 

She plays me like a lute, what tune she will. 
No string in me but trembles at her 
touch. 
Shakes into sacred music, or is still, 

Trembles or stops, or swells, her skill is 
such. 
And in the dusty tavern of my soul 

Where filthy lusts drink witches' brew for 
wine, 

271 



272 HER HEART 

Her gentle hand still keeps me from the 
bowl, 
Still keeps me man, saves me from being 
swine. 

All grace in me, all sweetness in my verse, 
Is hers, is my dear girl's, and only hers. 



BEING HER FRIEND 

Being her friend, I do not care, not I, 
How gods or men may wrong me, beat 
me down ; 

Her word's sufficient star to travel by, 
I count her quiet praise sufficient crown. 

Being her friend, I do not covet gold. 
Save for a royal gift to give her pleasure ; 

To sit with her, and have her hand to hold. 
Is wealth, I think, surpassing minted 
treasure. 

Being her friend, I only covet art, 
A white pure flame to search me as I 
trace 

In crooked letters from a throbbing heart 
The hymn to beauty written on her face. 

273 



FRAGMENTS 

Troy Town is covered up with weeds, 
The rabbits and the pismires brood 

On broken gold, and shards, and beads 
Where Priam's ancient palace stood. 

The floors of many a gallant house 
Are matted with the roots of grass; 

The glow-worm and the nimble mouse 
Among her ruins flit and pass. 

And there, in orts of blackened bone, 
The widowed Trojan beauties lie, 

And Simois babbles over stone 
And waps and gurgles to the sky. 

Once there were merry days in Troy, 
Her chimneys smoked with cooking meals, 

The passing chariots did annoy 

The sunning housewives at their wheels. 

274 



FRAGMENTS 275 

And many a lovely Trojan maid 
Set Trojan lads to lovely things ; 

The game of life was nobly played, 

They played the game like Queens and 
Kings. 

So that, when Troy had greatly passed 

In one red roaring fiery coal. 
The courts the Grecians overcast 

Became a city in the soul. 

In some green island of the sea. 

Where now the shadowy coral grows 

In pride and pomp and empery 
The courts of old Atlantis rose. 

In many a glittering house of glass 
The Atlanteans wandered there; 

The paleness of their faces was 
Like ivory, so pale they were. 



276 FRAGMENTS 

And hushed they were, no noise of words 
In those bright cities ever rang ; 

Only their thoughts, hke golden birds, 
About their chambers thrilled and sang. 

They knew all wisdom, for they knew 
The souls of those Egyptian Kings 

Who learned, in ancient Babilu, 
The beauty of immortal things. 

They knew all beauty — when they thought 
The air chimed like a stricken lyre, 

The elemental birds were wrought. 
The golden birds became a fire. 

And straight to busy camps and marts 
The singing flames were swiftly gone; 

The trembling leaves of human hearts 
Hid boughs for them to perch upon. 

And men in desert places, men 

Abandoned, broken, sick with fears, 



FRAGMENTS 277 

Rose singing, swung their swords agen, 
And laughed and died among the spears. 

The green and greedy seas have drowned 
That city's ghttering walls and towers, 

Her sunken minarets are crowned 
With red and russet water-flowers. 

In towers and rooms and golden courts 
The shadowy coral lifts her sprays; 

The scrawl hath gorged her broken orts, 
The shark doth haunt her hidden ways. 

But, at the falling of the tide, 
The golden birds still sing and gleam, 

The Atlanteans have not died, 

Immortal things still give us dream. 

The dream that fires man's heart to make, 
To build, to do, to sing or say 

A beauty Death can never take, 
An Adam from the crumbled clay. 



BORN FOR NOUGHT ELSE 

Born for nought else, for nothing but for 
this, 

To watch the soft blood throbbing in her 

throat, 

To think how comely sweet her body is, 

And learn the poem of her face by rote. 

Born for nought else but to attempt a 
rhyme 
That shall describe her womanhood 
aright. 
And make her holy to the end of Time, 
And be my soul's acquittal in God's 
sight. 

Born for nought else but to expressly mark 
The music of her dear deUcious ways; 

278 



BORN FOE NOUGHT ELSE 279 

Born but to perish meanly in the dark, 
Yet born to be the man to sing her 
praise. 

Born for nought else: there is a spirit tells 
My lot's a King's, being born for nothing 
else. 



TEWKESBURY ROAD 

It is good to be out on the road, and going 
one knows not where, 
Going through meadow and village, one 
knows not whither nor why; 
Through the grey light drift of the dust, in 
the keen cool rush of the air, 
Under the flying white clouds, and the 
broad blue lift of the sky. 

And to halt at the chattering brook, in the 
tall green fern at the brink 
Where the harebell grows, and the gorse, 
and the foxgloves purple and white; 
Where the shy-eyed dehcate deer troop 
down to the brook to drink 
When the stars are mellow and large at 
the coming on of the night. 

280 



TEWKSBUBT BOAD 281 

0, to feel the beat of the rain, and the 
homely smell of the earth, 
Is a tune for the blood to jig to, a joy 
past power of words; 
And the blessed green comely meadows are 
all a-ripple with mirth 
At the noise of the lambs at play and the 
dear wild cry of the birds. 



THE DEATH ROOMS 

My soul has many an old decaying room 
Hung with the ragged arras of the past, 

Where startled faces flicker in the gloom, 
And horrid whispers set the cheek aghast. 

Those dropping ;rooms are haunted by a 
death, 
A something hke a worm gnawing a 
brain. 
That bids me heed what bitter lesson saith 
The bhnd wind beating on the window- 
pane. 

None dwells in those old rooms : none ever 
can — 
I pass them through at night with hidden 
head; 

282 



THE DEATH ROOMS 283 

Lock'd rotting rooms her eyes must never 
scan, 

Floors that her blessed feet must never 

tread. 

Haunted old rooms: rooms she must never 

know, 
Where death-ticks knock and mouldering 

panels glow. 



IGNORANCE 

Since I have learned Love's shining alpha- 
bet, 
And spelled in ink what's writ in me in 
flame, 
And borne her sacred image richly set 
Here in my heart to keep me quit of 
shame ; 

Since I have learned how wise and passing 

wise 

Is the dear friend whose beauty I extol. 

And know how sweet a soul looks through 

the eyes, 

That are so pure a window to her soul ; 

Since I have learned how rare a woman 

shows 

284 



IGNORANCE 285 

As much in all she does as in her looks, 
And seen the beauty of her shame the 
rose, 
And dim the beauty writ about in books ; 

All I have learned, and can learn, shows me 

this — 
How scant, how slight, my knowledge of 

her is. 



SEA FEVER 

I MUST go down to the seas again, to the 

lonely sea and the sky, 
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to 

steer her by; 
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song 

and the white sail's shaking. 
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a 

grey dawn breaking, 

I must go down to the seas again, for the 

call of the running tide 
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not 

be denied; 
And all I ask is a windy day with the white 

clouds flying, 
And the flung spray and the blown spume, 

and the sea-gulls crying, 

286 



SEA FEVER 287 

I must go down to the seas again, to the 
vagrant gypsy hfe, 

To the gull's way and the whale's way 
where the wind's like a whetted knife ; 

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laugh- 
ing fellow-rover, 

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when 
the long trick's over. 



THE WATCH IN THE WOOD 

When Death has laid her in his quietude, 
And dimmed the glow of her benignant 
star, 
Her tired limbs shall rest within a wood. 
In a green glade where oaks and beeches 
are. 

Where the shy fawns, the pretty fawns, the 
deer. 
With mild brown eyes shall view her 
spirit's husk; 
The sleeping woman of her will appear. 
The maiden Dian shining through the dusk. 

And, when the stars are white as twilight 
fails, 
And the green leaves are hushed, and the 
winds swoon, 

288 



THE WATCH IN THE WOOD 289 

The calm pure thrilling throats of nightin- 
gales 
Shall hymn her sleeping beauty to the 
moon. 

All the woods hushed — save for a dripping 
rose, 

All the woods dim — save where a glow- 
worm glows. 

Brimming the quiet woods with holiness, 
The lone brown birds will hymn her till 
the dawn, 
The dehcate, shy, dappled deer will press 
Soft pitying muzzles on her swathed 
lawn. 

The little pretty rabbits running by. 

Will pause among the dewy grass to 
peep. 
Their thudding hearts affrighted to espy 

The maiden Dian lying there asleep. 



290 THE WATCH IN THE WOOD 

Brown, lustrous, placid eyes of sylvan 
things 
Will wonder at the quiet in her face, 
While from the thorny branch the singer 
brings 
Beauty and peace to that immortal place. 

Until the grey dawn sets the woods astir 
The pure birds' thrilling psalm will mourn 
for her. 



C. L. M. 

In the dark womb where I began 
My mother's Hfe made me a man. 
Through all the months of human bu-th 
Her beauty fed my common earth. 
I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir, 
But through the death of some of her. 

Down in the darkness of the grave 
She cannot see the life she gave. 
For all her love, she cannot tell 
Whether I use it ill or well. 
Nor knock at dusty doors to find 
Her beauty dusty in the mind. 

If the grave's gates could be undone, 

She would not know her little son, 

I am so grown. If we should meet 
291 



292 c. L. M. 

She would pass by me in the street, 
Unless my soul's face let her see 
My sense of what she did for me. 

What have I done to keep in mind 
My debt to her and womankind? 
What woman's happier life repays 
Her for those months of wretched days? 
For all my mouthless body leeched 
Ere Birth's releasing hell was reached? 

What have I done, or tried, or said 
In thanks to that dear woman dead? 
Men triumph over women still. 
Men trample women's rights at will. 
And man's lust roves the world untamed. 

* :(! * * 

O grave, keep shut lest I be shamed. 



WASTE 

No rose but fades : no glory but must pass : 
No hue but dims : no precious silk but 
frets. 

Her beauty must go underneath the grass, 
Under the long roots of the violets. 

0, many glowing beauties Time has hid 
In that dark, blotting box the villain 
sends. 
He covers over with a coffin-lid 
Mothers and sons, and foes and lovely 
friends. 

Maids that were redly-lipped and comely- 
skinned, 
Friends that deserved a sweeter bed than 

clay, 

293 



294 WASTE 

All are as blossoms blowing down the 
wind, 
Things the old envious villain sweeps 
away. 

And though the mutterer laughs and 

church bells toll, 
Death brings another April to the soul. 



THIRD MATE 

All the sheets are clacking, all the blocks 

are whining, 
The sails are frozen stiff and the wetted 

decks are shining; 
The reef's in the topsails, and it's coming 

on to blow, 
And I think of the dear girl I left long 

ago. 

Grey were her eyes, and her hair was long 

and bonny. 
Golden was her hair, like the wild bees' 

honey. 
And I was but a dog, and a mad one to 

despise, 
The gold of her hair and the grey of her 

eyes. 

295 



296 THIRD MATE 

There's the sea before me, and my home's 

behind me, 
And beyond there the strange lands where 

nobody will mind me, 
No one but the girls with the paint upon 

their cheeks. 
Who sell away their beauty to whomsoever 

seeks. 

There'll be drink and women there, and 

songs and laughter. 
Peace from what is past and from all that 

follows after; 
And a fellow will forget how a woman lies 

awake. 
Lonely in the night watch crying for his 

sake. 

Black it blows and bad and it howls like 
slaughter, 



THIRD MATE 297 

And the ship she shudders as she takes the 
water. 

Hissing flies the spindrift hke a wind- 
blown smoke, 

And I think of a woman and a heart I 
broke. 



THE WILD DUCK 

Twilight. Red in the west. 

Dimness. A glow on the wood. 

The teams plod home to rest. 

The wild duck come to glean. 

souls not understood, 

What a wild cry in the pool; 

What things have the farm ducks 

seen 
That they cry so — huddle and cry ? 

Only the soul that goes. 
Eager. Eager. Flying. 
Over the globe of the moon, 
Over the wood that glows. 
Wings Unked. Necks a-strain, 

298 



THE WILD DUCK 299 

A rush and a wild crying. 

* !ti * 

A cry of the long pain 

In the reeds of a steel lagoon. 

In a land that no man knows. 



CHRISTMAS, 1903 

O, THE sea breeze will be steady, and the 

tall ship's going trim, 
And the dark blue skies are paling, and 

the white stars burning dim; 
The long night watch is over, and the long 

sea-roving done, 
And yonder light is the Start Point light, 

and yonder comes the sun. 

0, we have been with the Spaniards, and 

far and long on the sea ; 
But there are the twisted chimneys, and 

the gnarled old inns on the quay. 
The wind blows keen as the day breaks, 

the roofs are white with the rime, 

And the church-bells ring as the sun comes 

up to call men in to Prime. 
300 



CHRISTMAS, 1903 301 

The church-bells rock and jangle, and there 
is peace on the earth. 

Peace and good will and plenty and Christ- 
mas games and mirth. 

O, the gold glints bright on the wind-vane 
as it shifts above the squire's house, 

And the water of the bar of Salcombe is 
muttering about the bows. 

O, the salt sea tide of Salcombe, it 

wrinkles into wisps of foam. 
And the church-bells ring in Salcombe to 

ring poor sailors home. 
The belfry rocks as the bells ring, the 

chimes are merry as a song, 
They ring home wandering sailors who 

have been homeless long. 



THE WORD 

My friend, my bonny friend, when we are 
old. 
And hand in hand go tottering down the 
hill, 
May we be rich in love's refined gold. 
May love's gold coin be current with us 
still. 

May love be sweeter for the vanished 

days, 

And your most perfect beauty still as 

dear 

As when your troubled singer stood at 

gaze 

In the dear March of a most sacred 

year. 

302 



THE WORD 303 

May what we are be all we might have 

been, 

And that potential, perfect, my friend, 

And may there still be many sheafs to 

glean 

In our love's acre, comrade, till the end. 

And may we find, when ended is the page. 
Death but a tavern on our pilgrimage. 



npHE following pages ar« advertisements of recent im- 
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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



Fires 



By W. W. GIBSON 

Author of " Daily Bread," " Womenkind," etc. 

Cloth, izmo, $1.23 net 

In this striking book of verse Mr. Gibson writes of simple, 
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BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
JJaily OrCa^Cl in Three "Books 121m, $1.25 net 

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— Abridged from an article in " The Outlook.'" 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



JUN 26 1913 



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